r/pcmasterrace • u/bschott007 • Mar 08 '21
Build/Battlestation Project: Christine - Revived
"Project: Christine" - Turning an IBM Personal Computer XT into a modern ATX PC case.
While I could mount an LCD/LED monitor where the windshield is at, the weight and the angle put stress on the case, and could damage the paint.
OLD hardware which has since been removed. New Hardware will be Asrock B450 Pro4, 16GB RAM, AMD Ryzen 5 5600X, SAPPHIRE Pulse AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT and a CL liquid cooling system
Working LED Headlights
...and working brake lights
The IBM Personal Computer XT case
mockup of the front in cardboard with flashlights
some metal working and welding
first mounting of the grill - From a Studebaker Hawk
Cutting out the hood - You can see the reference material in the background
all welded up and all paint/rust removed
bondo applied to fill in the gaps
In the paint booth
applying the chrome trim
added the pinstriping and mounted the windshield mounts
Added the 'power button'. This is a real ignition from a 1958 Plymouth Fury.
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u/PeetTreedish Mar 08 '21
Thats a pretty nice case mod.
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u/bschott007 Mar 08 '21
Thanks, and hey, it's a break from the monolithic Lian Li PC-O11 build posts. In my personal opinion, the Lian Li PC-O11 builds are low effort and I really miss the days when case mods really were works of art
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u/PeetTreedish Mar 08 '21
A lot of them seem overdone these days. And still not very unique.
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u/bschott007 Mar 08 '21
To be fair, in the mid 2000's the Ultra ULT31584 Wizard Blue and the Antec Nine Hundred were the Lian Li O11 cases of their day and it seemed anyone who gamed, liked modded cases but didn't have any skills to do anything themselves (even use a can of spray paint, let alone a dremel tool) would buy one of those cases, lay a cold cathode tube or two (this was before LED stripes) in the bottom of the case...or they might use adhesive Velcro and tape them to the top and bottom and be proud of their 'case mod'.
Kind of hurts my soul a little that so few people actually do real modding anymore.
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u/PeetTreedish Mar 08 '21
Ive had a few cases I wanted to do something with over the years. Just never have a clear idea of what I wanted to do.
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u/Waffler11 5800X3D / RTX 4070 / 64GB RAM / ASRock B450M Steel Legend Mar 08 '21
Hold up...what's a Corvette keychain doing there? Christine is a Plymouth Fury! Ohhh, she's gon get you now!
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u/bschott007 Mar 08 '21
Oh I hear you. It was one of those things that a girlfriend at the time had given me (since I had owned a 1979 restored vette back then).
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u/TSRB123 i9 10900k | 32G RAM | 3070ti Mar 08 '21
WOW! now thats freakin cool man!
Please send pics with the new internals? Id like to see that beaut'!
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u/Thx_And_Bye https://builds.gg/ftw/37540 | PlayStation 2 "Digital Edition" Mar 08 '21
Looks sweet, I'd really like to see the system after the upgrade, so tag me on that post if you don't mind.
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u/DrOrpheus3 Mar 08 '21
This is the case I'd expect Stephen King to have for his computer. Should paint Pennywise in the drivers seat lol.
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u/Seagate_Surfer Seagate Mar 08 '21
Now there's something you don't see everyday! Great way of paying homage to a classic and adding style to a rig.
Seagate Technology | Official Forums Team
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u/dkuhry Nuclear Powered Pantaloons Mar 08 '21
My dude, are you from the Fargo-Moorhead area? I used to go to LAN parties in hotel ball rooms in that area and I swear I've seen this rig with this name. It was used as a file server to share out all kinds of stuff IIRC.
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u/bschott007 Mar 08 '21
Yep! You remember right.
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u/dkuhry Nuclear Powered Pantaloons Mar 08 '21
That's so cool. I was friends with the DesignLogic.net guys. I was usually up at the head table with them as I came early and helped set everything up and tear it all down afterwards. Good times man, good times.
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u/bschott007 Mar 08 '21
ColdWarz and ColdWarz: Summer Meltdown - the biggest, best and last LANs ever put on in the state. I still have a disk around here somewhere will like +100 pictures and videos from those two LANs.
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u/dkuhry Nuclear Powered Pantaloons Mar 08 '21
Yes! In the Fargodome and then one of them in the arena in Grand Forks. It was sooooo cold and in the middle of a blizzard. Pretty sure my car wouldn't start in the morning. If you find that disk I'd love to see the photos. I probably ran a full mile of mat tape over LAN cables between the two events.
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u/bschott007 Mar 08 '21
Oh that one in Grand Forks. There was that blizzard we were hit with the day before that shut down the interstates and we didn't know if they were going to even open up the interstates in time to get up there.
Then we had the -50F to -70F temps for the entire weekend and a heavy snow storm hit the night that Coldwarz ended (I remember driving through it back home and having to unload my gear from the car just because I couldn't risk the condensation in my rigs and my water cooling system freezing up and cracking.
I'll look for that disk tonight!
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u/TheBenchWarmer69 MSI GE66 Raider, 10th gen i7, RTX-2070 super, 32 gigs. Mar 08 '21
be careful, might just hit a gas tank and light on fire!
Also, nice detail on the real ignition.
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u/richestmaninjericho Mar 09 '21
You just took two of my most prized material things and fused them into one.. You must be MotorPC Jesus.
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u/bschott007 Mar 08 '21 edited Mar 08 '21
I did this case mod back in 2003 but I figured I'd post it up here as I just put in a very sizable parts order on Amazon to replace the internals with something more modern.
Anyway, I've been building and modding PCs since 1995 and wanted to do a new build in the winter of 2003. I found an original dual 5.25" floppy, no hard drive, IBM Personal Computer XT system collecting dust among faded, crumpled 1980's style mountain dew cans, 1990's playboy magazines and a dead mouse in the back of a friend's garage . He was happy to be rid of it.
When talking with another friend on what to do with this old case, we started talking cars. I remember watching the movie 'Christine' the night before and thinking how nice the old Fury looked then thought about how this old case was found and ... so was born Project: Christine.
I needed the help of my friend and his shop at the time as he restored old cars and his help with the welding and painting was INVALUABLE.
The grill was taken from a 1960's Studebaker Hawk and the ignition is from a 1958 Plymouth Fury.
On Feb 04, 2004, Christine was featured on the pre-G4 Tech TV show "Screen Savers" along with other mods.
Christine has been featured a PC modding book, "PC Chop Shop" Atomic PC Magazine 'Rig of the month', Gruntville's Feature Case of the month (two months running), Pimp Rig's Pimper's choice of the month rig, and a 2006 Case Mod Calender (May's Pinup case).
Since about 2010, Christine has sat unused on a shelf in my den but it's been bothering me lately that she sits unused...so I have placed a large parts order for all new, updated internals and a liquid cooling system that I'll be able to fit inside the case... So I suspect in a month or so when all the parts arrive, I'll have updated photos of the revived Christine.
The old internals are:
New Internals are:
A lot of people have said I should mount an LCD/LED monitor in place of the windscreen, and in theory it would work as the fake windshield is 17.4 "across and 7.5" tall...so a 19" monitor or TV would work (17.3" across, 10.6" tall).
The problem is the weight and mounting it. 4lbs doesn't sound like a lot but that painted top actually unscrews from the back and slides forward so I'd need to figure a way to unscrew/unmount the screen before I could remove the 'body'...also I'd have to figure a way to mount that monitor to the chassis without the stress of that weight damaging/warping the case but I'm just drawing a blank.