[Eug]

I got a G4 1.25 GHz 20" lampshade USB 2 iMac off eBhey for a good price, but FedEx damaged the casing during shipping. The front bezel broke off completely, leaving the underlying metal exposed. The machine works fine though, so the seller just gave me a refund of half of what I paid and we called it a day.



I can purchase the front bezel for a reasonable price, but if my store installs it, it's gonna cost me a couple of hundred dollars.

The case around the screen is also cracked, but it seems stable enough so I could live with it as long as I could replace the front bezel.



If I get the store to replace the screen housing as well (the cracked part), it's gonna cost me even more obviously, mainly because of the labour costs. However, because there is a blemish on the screen, I don't think I want to spend that much to fix everything.




How hard is it to replace the screen's front bezel alone? It just looks like a plastic piece held on by little plastic tabs. The piece that the store would sell me would come with some wiring as well, but it looks like I won't need that as the mic and power indicator are still intact. Is there a service manual available somewhere? (They didn't show me what is included exactly, as they don't keep it in stock.)

I'm tempted to just get some adhesive velcro and use that instead, since the bezel is still intact. The plastic tabs on the back of it are just broken off. (You can see the remnants of those plastic tabs in the top picture.

[JKT]

Do any of the flat panel iMac manuals here help?

APPLE MANUALS

[Eug]

Originally Posted by JKT 

Do any of the flat panel iMac manuals here help?

APPLE MANUALS

Hey thanks. There is a service manual for the 17/15" model, which is close enough. Unfortunately, it seems the display housing replacement is a lot more complicated than I'd hoped.

[JKT]

Can you get the two bits of broken plastic out without damaging them further? Perhaps give e.g. an adhesive suitable for the plastic (whatever it is) a go, to glue the broken bits back?

[Eug]

Originally Posted by JKT 

Can you get the two bits of broken plastic out without damaging them further? Perhaps give e.g. an adhesive suitable for the plastic (whatever it is) a go, to glue the broken bits back?

Nah. No way to get most of them out without disassembling the enclosure.

I think I'm gonna go low budget and use Velcro.

[Eug]

Went with double sided half-inch adhesive tape. It works well enough.


What it looks like without the bezel. (Some tape applied, and sorry for the barrel distortion.)




Tape applied. I left the mic and sleep light exposed, as well as a few spots where those plastic tabs remain.




Bezel on. Strength is reasonable, but not the same as a proper fix obviously.
I'll just have to remember not to grab the bezel when moving the screen.




Side view.

[JKT]

Looks good enough to me

[Veltliner]

Looks like there's a big flat surface. Four white stripes. Why not glue it on.

[Simon]

The four white stripes you see there is the white tape the OP applied.

[Eug]

Yup.

The metal rim is very solid, but you'll see lots of linear holes in it. These are slots for little plastic tabs on the bezel.





The plastic tabs click into place but on mine they're pretty much all broken off. I just have some remnants of a couple (which helped me guide the bezel into the proper seating when I applied the tape). Thus the back of the bezel isn't completely flat. I'd have to sand it down.

I don't want to glue it anwway. The adhesive tape is actually surprisingly strong, probably because I used so much of it. However it's still removable, unlike glue. The adhesive tape is the same type of tape you see on the back of those plastic wire guides at the hardware store:



It's strong enough that when I ripped some of these wireguides off my wall in my new house, it took a huge amount of drywall with it. However, on metal, it's definitely removable.