How to remove the fasteners that hold an enclosure together?

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jhsachs

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Apr 10, 2009
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I need to take apart a computer enclosure to remove one of the parts. (This is a one-way operation. I have no plans to put it together again.) I'm looking for advice on the most effective way to remove the fasteners that hold it together.

I thought at first that the fasteners were rivets, but they're not. They're metal rods with a head on one end and a metal collar on the other end, apparently held by friction. The rod passes through holes in two parts of the case, as a rivet would, and holds them together with the head on one side and the collar on the other.

I can imagine pulling the collar off with pliers, but to pull it off I'd have to put pressure on it, which would tend to clamp it more tightly. There's probably a way to avoid that. I hope someone can give me the benefit of experience so I don't have to figure it out by trial and error, and error, and more error!
 
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Oh they are obviously "doohickeys". I forget what they are called but if I am visualizing wj0hat you have described they are somewhat like C-clips except that go all the way around. I just pop them off with somethin thin and flat like a single edge razor blade or thin screwdriver
 
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Yeah, this sounds like Circlips.
iOvVRGP.jpg


 
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On PC cases I have see similar things only don't kno the term. They look like slightly oversized washers with 2 tans on the inner hole. When ya push the shaft thru, these tabs bend away .... to try and reverse that, the friction wants to make them flat again which required that the tab bend ... after removing, they shouldn't be used again as they are deformed .... C-clips ya can reuse. You can re-use the doohickey things but wil never hold as well as original as even if the flatten them out first, they still been deformed.
 
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Yes, a picture would be useful, but not pratical. I'd need a macro lens, and my digital camera doesn't have one.

The drill idea sounds good, but I'll need some cutting oil to try it. I'm not sure when I'll have time to do that. (I've realized that the part I wanted -- the disk cage -- is too big for the application I had planned for it, so I'll have to keep looking for a suitable case. So this problem has lost a lot of the urgency it had, but it still has to be solved someday.)

geofelt, I think you were misled because I didn't explain what part I needed. You were probably thinking about something like a fan. The disk cage is considered part of the frame, which is not designed to be taken apart.

As for make/model, definitely not. If the case had those things, it wouldn't be a piece of junk that I'd be willing to destroy to get the disk cage off!

The fasteners are not C-clips. The "collars" are shaped like donuts, length a little greater than diameter. They go all the way around, and appear to have been deformed when they were applied.

JackNaylorPE, I think the thing you're describing is a speed nut. But it's not that, either.

I tried the knife trick with a utility knife and couldn't get the collar to budge. And that was in a place chosen for accessibility. I couldn't even reach most of the ones I need to remove that way, except perhaps with a special tool to hold the razor blade. Good idea but not successful.
 
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