Spill on keyboard - advice on fixing it?

[IMRS]

About 3 months ago my MacBook was left in my lounge in my dormitory for a few hours. I came back to it and someone had spilled (what looks like coffee) on the upper left portion of my keyboard and seemed to soak it up and bail, leaving traces of brownness behind. Anyway, I was outraged, but my life has gone on.
It seems that the A, E, D, 2, and left Shift keys no longer work but the computer has continued to run normally. I have been using an external keyboard because I have heard about the high cost of sending it into apple to fix.
I have seen a bunch of information about replacing the MacBook keyboards (I believe there is even an instructional do-it-yourself video online). Is it worth buying a new keyboard for $50 and doing it myself or having a friend who is good with building computers do it? I just found otu that this all may be an option but it seems too good to be true. Does anyone have any suggestions? I am willing to spend some money to fix this as long as it isn't Apple or my local computer store's $400-500 fees. Also, is it possible that the spill messed up something somewhere else in the computer that doesn't allow the keyboard to fully work.
Any help would be great.
Thanks,
Ian

 

[NewMacbookPlz]

Getting a new keyboard+instructions on fixing it would be found on www.ifixit.com.

As for messing something else up, completely possible, but chances are that wouldn't cause a small part of the keyboard to fail, you'd be having other issues as well.

 

[jtibbitt]

Man, leaving the scene of the crime. That's mean. Ah well, hopefully it's just the keyboard.