Expansion card fit problem - TT armor

Man it's been a while since i've been on here.

A while back I got an armor case from TTake, much like everyone else and their dog. After disassembling most of it for painting, spraying it, and then throwing my guts into it, I noticed that I could not get the expansion cards (video, sound, wireless) to fit and sit against the bezel openings where you screw the cards down. If you attempt to get the cards to sit in the openings and screw them down, they would pop out of the motherboard slots.

I made do with some zip ties, secured the cards to minimize wiggle, and felt bad about it all. I recently went back to this issue. I reinstalled the motherboard with the spacers supplied with the case. They are slightly longer than the ones I used the first time. I thought maybe I was having a height problem. I got everything back in it and am still having the problem. I'm closer to fitting though. I can get the wireless card seated and screwed in, but I had to rig the sound card and video card with a screw/spacer combo. A rigged nut/bolt kind of situation. I'd be happy to post pictures later if that helps.

As far as I could tell, I've placed the motherboard in the right place. But after painting over the mobo tray, I can't read the hole labels that well. Does it sound like I'm just too far forward? Or is there some other problem I'm not thinking of?

the important parts:
ThermalTake Armor
Asus p5gd2 (if memory serves)
ATI 1600 or 1900. eitherway, a PCIx16 card
creative x-fi

If everything lines up correctly, I'd assume that the motherboard is placed correctly.

It might be that the paint threw off tolerances and just took up that little bit of extra space that is preventing the cards from seating correctly. It depends on how thick you painted the case and how much wiggle room the cards had to start with. Maybe try sanding it down a little bit and see if that helps.

I've got this in some cheap cases before. They might have just messed up on manufacturing or assembling it.