Nintendo Cab side bolts

[horseboy]

About half of every Nintendo cab that I see has 4 or 5 bolt holes on the side (for some reason a bunch of Donkey Kongs have this). I always assumed that they were just put there for converting a verticle monitor to horizontal. Now, I am a little confused, though. I just read another thread where somebody said that some cabs came standard with these. This can't be the case, can it?

Also, I was looking at markrvp's Donkey Kong restoration thread. His has 5 bolts on each side. The three towards the front are not in use, but the back two are used for the verticle monitor mounting. How would they mount without those brackets?



Disregard the red circles, markrvp was trying to illustrate a different point.


Doing searches on the web/klov/newsgroups turns up all kinds of contradicting info. Some say all five holes are standard on all cabs. Some say just the back two. Some say that some nintendo cabs have no outside holes at all. So what is the deal here guys? I am mostly interested in DK/DK Jr's, but I am interested to know how this is for all Nintendo cabs.

[Level42]

Well my "converted" Radar Scope => Mario Bros doesn't have any bolts......
The monitor is still in vertical position, and they applied the side art already !!

So, I will need a way to do a horizontal mount WITHOUT those bolts !

Or convert it back to a DK(jr), but that would be a shame of the great marquee, bezel and CP......and the PCB set that is slowly crossing the Atlantic.....

Remember that there could also be lots of these cabs converted back to DK(jr.) from f.i. Popeye or MB......or Super MB.

[FrizzleFried]

My original DK Jr. cab also has these bolts.  Hell,  I never really looked at them but you are right,  6 of the 10 bolts (3 on each side) do absolutely nothing?)  Hell,  I think i am going to remove them before I put the side art on...I wonder why in the heck they are there?

[Ken Layton]

DK and most Nintendo cabinets that originally came with vertically mounted monitors only had the two rear bolts installed. Back in the early days of conversion kits, Nintendo made the "VS. Unisystem" kits. These were horizontal kits and came with new monitor mounting (horizontal) brackets, chrome bolts, and a drilling template. I drilled tons of holes in literally dozens of Nintendo cabinets that we converted to Unisystem. I did them up real nice so they looked like factory jobs.

If you want to convert from horiz back to vertical mount, you'll need to buy the U-channel crossbar that attaches to the rear end of the monitor. Mike's Arcade sells new reproduction crossbars on his site under Nintendo cabinet parts.

[FrizzleFried]

DK and most Nintendo cabinets that originally came with vertically mounted monitors only had the two rear bolts installed. Back in the early days of conversion kits, Nintendo made the "VS. Unisystem" kits. These were horizontal kits and came with new monitor mounting (horizontal) brackets, chrome bolts, and a drilling template. I drilled tons of holes in literally dozens of Nintendo cabinets that we converted to Unisystem. I did them up real nice so they looked like factory jobs.

If you want to convert from horiz back to vertical mount, you'll need to buy the U-channel crossbar that attaches to the rear end of the monitor. Mike's Arcade sells new reproduction crossbars on his site under Nintendo cabinet parts.

Ken,

Why would my original DK Jr come with all 10 bolts (5 bolts on each side)?   The cabinet has a Nintendo plate indicating it is a DK Jr?   Perhaps this cabinet was intended for a VS system then they just made it a DK Jr?

[Ken Layton]

I believe that starting with DK jr, Nintendo was anticipating some horiz games so they drilled all cabinets for both mounting methods.

[horseboy]

Thanks for the info guys. I think I will take Ken's word for this one.