Here's the breakdown of the mod:
I'm putting an ibook G3 inside the shell of a Lime iMac.

The goal is to make the iMac portable. So, I'm making it as light weight as possible. In doing so I'm using all the laptop's components because they are lighter. The only iMac component I'm going to try using is the CD-ROM because it will fit nicer in the slot in the shell.

Issues:
I need to lengthen all the wires from the display. This would include the airport pigtail, the microphone (not important), and then the two other cables. I assume one is the data to the LCD screen and the other is the light?

So, how do I extend the wires? Can I just strip them, go in to Radio Shack and find wire of the same gauge and solder it in the middle of the wire to make it longer?

Issue 2:
Connecting the iMac CD-ROM to the iBook motherboard. I have a IDE cable that has two inputs (one for the HDD and one for the CD-ROM). But, the back of the CD-ROM I'm using from the iMac is ATAPI. Which someone told me today is the same as IDE. But, the IDE cable doesn't plug into it (interesting note, there is a chip plugged into the CD-ROM that looks like it converts it to IDE. Don't know if that is normal or not.

Anyway I'm really excited to get going on this. Any input would be great.

Also, since I'm going to be using an external keyboard, and I'm adding an additional 100GB internal laptop drive via USB adapter, I'll be using both USB ports. So, my plan is to get 2 USB hubs for hopefully a total of 8 USB ports. Anyone see a problem with that? I have my doubts that a laptop could keep all 8 ports powered if devices were connected to each slot.

Thanks for the help!

Do not connect the 100GB HDD via USB. G3 iBooks have USB 1.1, you need to move up to a G4 iBook to get USB 2.0 and even then USB 2.0 is slow. Just replace the original HDD and use that bus. Sooooooo much faster that way.
Oh, and you do have that FireWire port at your disposal.

*Edit
wrt issue 2, isn't the iBook's drive ATAPI as well? (just like the iMac's if you remove the adapter board)
As far as I have seen, a Lime iMac would be a tray loader, and they use normal slim PC ATAPI drives, just like the Lombard/Pismo(at least my TL iMac and Lombard use the same connector and can take PC ATAPI drives(I have tried it in both and people have written elsewhere about it)). I also recall hearing that you could use some iBook drives in the Lombard/Pismo so they must all have the same connector.

Before I start, here is a link to show you what the cable inside the ibook looks like.

[url=[/url]http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/iBook-G3-12-Inch-Optical-Drive/133/16[url]][/url]http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/iBook-G3-12-Inch-Optical-Drive/133/16[url][/url]

You are right that if I take off the two different adapters off the two cd drives, then yes, the orange "ribbon" cable used to connect the hard drive and optical drive can be used with the imac drive. the only issue is, that it isn't long enough for my purpose. So I need a way to use IDE.

BTW, what is the connection called on the back of the optical drives. Is that SATA?

Also, is there anyway to upgrade usb to 2.0? Or a usb 2.0 to firewire adapter?

There is no way to add USB 2.0 to an iBook G3. The optical drives are IDE/ATA/ATAPI (all the same really).

Issues:
I need to lengthen all the wires from the display. This would include the airport pigtail, the microphone (not important), and then the two other cables. I assume one is the data to the LCD screen and the other is the light?

So, how do I extend the wires? Can I just strip them, go in to Radio Shack and find wire of the same gauge and solder it in the middle of the wire to make it longer?

Any answers for this yet?

Yes, you can lengthen the wires that way. Make sure you use some heat shrink tubing or something else to insulate them WELL and INDIVIDUALLY.

thank you for the reply. I will post back when I've made an attempt.

Ok, so I haven't really accomplished anything since my last post. I thought I ordered the cable I need to connect the 100gb internal laptop drive and the optical drive from the imac to the ibook's motherboard. But, the cable I have doesn't connect to either drives. Here is a link to the cable I bought. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...#ht_3499wt_1169

You don't have to lengthen the AirPort cable. Just run it on the side, it doesn't have to go around the monitor. As for the video yes you can just strip it and extend the wire but it can take a while. If you do this make sure to use heat-shrink tubing on the cable to insulate it. Best bet for the cable is some zip line, has some nice thick sheathing.

For cheaper components try here

I'm still looking for help on my previous post. Trying to figure out what type of cable i can use to lengthen the connections for the hard drive and cd rom.