Well I finally got around to installing all the components and am in the process of leak testing for 24 hours...
I unpacked all the part and began installation by mounting the top radiator. This ended up being the most difficult part of the installation. Lining up the screws with the fan, shroud, and radiator proved be to quite a challenge.
After installing the first radiator, I figured the second would go smoothly so I unpacked the second radiator and to my horror it wouldn't fit! There was no way to mount the radiator in the rear, even with the radiator rotated 90*. So I did some thinking and decided to mod the front fan mount and HDD cage. I drilled out the rivets and rigged the radiator, fan, and shroud to mount into the drive rail assembly.
In the end I am happy with the way the mod turned out and now have one radiator sucking cool air in from the front of the system. I used the DVD-ROM chassis to remount the HDD Cage and mounted a fan to the front of it as well to allow active cooling for the Hard Drive.
After mounting both radiators, I installed the two GPU blocks and the CPU block without issue. I then started routing and cutting my tygon tubing which took a couple of hours to do. BTW, Tygon tubing does not do sharp angles well at all. I had trouble avoiding kinks in the tubes.
After completing all the tubing I proceeded to fill the system...
I stood back to inspect my work and was horrified to find that I had run all my tubing the wrong direction! Well I had gone through all 10 feet of tygon tubing and basically wasted $30. I also found out that I had no way of draining my system. I eventually just pinched off the supply hose for the pump, disconnected it, and drained the system.
Today I went to Lowes and found some braided, reinforced 1/2" ID PVC tubing for $0.84 a foot and purchased 12 foot of it. This stuff is VERY Stiff but very heavy duty (its double-walled with a mesh lining in between them and is made for high preasure loops). This tubing is nice as it wont kink, even at extreme angles! After fighting with it for a few hours, I was very pleased with the outcome and even managed to add a T-line for easy draining of the system.
I am now leak testing the system (only the pump and fans are plugged in) and will post pics once I get access to a computer which supports my Digicam.
I want to thank you all for your help! I also hope the results are well worth the time, effort, and expense... :scared:
-Josh
|