A1138 and A1095 palm rest and battery

[mikiotty]

Hi everyone!
I'm probably going to pick up an A1138 with a dead hard drive (has the question mark folder at bootup). It has a non-italian and non-english layout so I want to swap the keyboard (or palm rest) from my A1095, which has the italian layout. Are they interchangeable?
Same goes for the battery, but I'm pretty sure the batteries are swappable between the two.
Thank yoUu!

 

[eyoungren]

The keyboards should be swappable. I doubt the top cases are though (which would be the palm rest).

I just went through this with my A1151 (MBP) which had two dead keys. Of course the PowerBooks will be different, but the process of swapping the keyboard and how it's attached is analagous. I want to warn you that what may seem like a simple, five minute job won't be unless you have unerring accuracy at these sort of things.

Getting the keyboard out is the easy part. Bending it back in so that it sits flush and correct with all the little pins and tabs in the right places is not. I had to do it twice because my keyboard was not sitting flush and even now there are still a few little bends here and there.

I'm not saying don't do it, I'm just giving you my experience.

Take a look at the guides on iFixit.com.

 

[bunnspecial]

Let me second Eriks comment that swapping keyboards(alone) is not for the faint of heart!

My first A1138 had a badly chipped right palm rest. A member here very generously sent me a big box of Powerbook parts, and included in it were two very nice A1138 top cases without keyboards.

I swapped my good keyboard onto the good top case. I can tell you that it probably took me a dozen tries to get it seated exactly right. I even put the computer back together twice and booted it, only to realize when I started typing that there was a "buckle" somewhere on the keyboard.

 

[eyoungren]

@bunnspecial. I still have a few little "buckles". But not enough that you can see them casually that's going to cause me to want to take the case off and try again.

Other than getting the back off an LCD screen this was one of the more difficult repairs I've encountered.