Power Macintosh / Performa 6400 & 6500 series Lower Faceplate Release Tabs Clips

These are designed as a replacement for the oft-broken lower release tabs that hold the lower edge of the front facia onto a Power Macintosh or Performa 6400 and 6500 model towers.

These are a pretty accurate hand-drawn replica of Apple's original part aside from one slight modification. Instead of the flimsy plastic peg on a easily broken tab that locates in the circular hole in the chassis floor, I added provision to put in an M3 heat-set into a stationary holder. When fitted the M3 threaded heat-set lines up with the hole so a M3 screw can be used to retain them instead. I recommend about an M3x6mm to M3x8mm countersunk screw, as seen in the photos, for a discreet installation.

The M3 heat-set inserts I used are Ruthex types and fit a 4.0mm hole, but I attached the FreeCAD file so you can adjust the hole size if you want to use different ones.

Some mild finesse-ing of the case around the front where the replacement clips are fitted is required to refit the 'sub-woofer' bass resonator box if you fit the clips first, ass the bumps for the M3 screws do stick up a bit. The bass box does fit in though, and when in place there are recesses above each clip that allow ample space for the replacement parts and the bass box to live in harmony.

I recommend printing in a reasonably flexible plastic such as PLA or PETG as they are intentionally designed to flex in the same way as the originals.