Autobody Shop For Metal Powerbooks?

[Elfen]

This is not Elfen posting but his youngest daughter, he's in the hospital for observation as it looks like its a bad allergy issue that is he undergoing. Details tomorrow when I get them. But I'm posting for him.

He just received as a large screen Powerbook G4 from a friend who upgraded to an Intel MacBook. Thing is, this Powerbook, though it still works, has seen too many airport luggage gorillas and has more dents and dings on it than a five car wreck on the freeway. This laptop has been around the world a coupe of times and its lucky it was never stolen. There's a large dent on the battery vents side when keeps the PCMCIA slot from ejecting though the slot works. There's another on the back of the LCD that makes the LCD Head stiff to open though it does open. The metal on the other port side is dented lightly in making the ports stick out slightly. The Palm Rest above the CD/DVD Drive has separated. There are quite a few gouges in the metal on the sides and bottom. Either the LCD frame or the bottom from has a slight bend to it - the center is closer to edge than the outer corners in a flatten U-shape.

Otherwise, its a clean machine, only used for basic mobile office use, boots up on 10.4 just fine on it a crisp clean large screen, larger than daddy's little 12in Powerbook he uses. We'll be formatting the drive and transferring his apps and files to this machine. But the case needs work. How to do it?

He's taught us PC and Mac Repairs and we're handy with his tools.

 

[wilykat]

Might be cheaper to get a dead one in nice cosmetic condition off eBay than to try and professionally hammer out all the dents.

 

[Gorgonops]

He just received as a large screen Powerbook G4 from a friend who upgraded to an Intel MacBook

Out of curiosity, when you say "Large Screen" is it a 15" or a 17" model?

In either case unfortunately it sounds to me like "find a less dinged one" might be the best solution. Without seeing the damage directly I probably can't do much more than guess at what you could do to relieve some of the worst of the problems, but... broadly speaking construction-wise the Aluminum Powerbooks are basically a metal tray (the lower case) in which all the guts are installed and covered by a cap (the upper case sheet in which the keyboard rests inside a recessed pocket) with the display assembly cantilevered out into its notch with a hinge on either end. The problem with the design is the bottom case is basically one big stamping, sort of like a cookie sheet, and if you've ever dealt with a warped cookie sheet you'll know how once you manage to put a twist into them it's well neigh impossible to make it straight again. For dents you can remove the innards and hammer the dents back out (although if it's a corner it's probably not going to go well; I tried to massage a dented corner out of a 15" one once and I think I just made it look worse because the aluminum looked cracked once the dent was reversed; pulling a dent out of a long edge is more successful) but a major bend that makes it look cockeyed you're probably stuck with. (By "palm rest separating" do you mean the metal has pulled away from the plastic frame around it? That's probably evidence that your bottom case is indeed bent and is putting torque on the case cover. As you can see here the top case is a composite structure that under some circumstances is more likely to pull apart than bend.) Dents in the LCD cover are another kettle of fish. The LCD housing is a combination of snapped and glued together so unless the dent is so bad as to actually be structural (which I'm not sure is possible without breaking the LCD, although the glass is flexible enough that if the whole Powerbook were bent slightly it might hold together) you're better off leaving that alone. I know there are *some* people that can pull those apart in their sleep but I did it once and it was horrible.

If you wanted to post a few pictures of it there's probably a few people who watch these forums more skilled than I who could give you some concrete advise about how to resolve the problems that are actually operation-affecting.

 

[Elfen]

Its the 17in model. As is, if you have it resting on a desk or your lap, you can't hardly tell that there is something wrong. But if you inspect the machine, yes it is damaged in its bottom and sides. And yet it runs just fine.

 

[Gorgonops]

Okay. If that's the case probably what I'd suggest is going to iFixit, browsing their take-apart/repair guides, and following one just remove the top case. (The instructions for that are in most of the more in-depth items, like changing the logic board) and once it's off seeing if you can gently convince some of the dents that are actually affecting things (like the one that's preventing PCMCIA cards from ejecting) to straighten out. (While you're in there you might be able to see if there's a cracked piece of plastic or popped-off metal bit on the lid that can be mended with superglue/etc. to firm up the palmrest.) Again, I would just exercise caution because the aluminum shell (in my limited experience) doesn't take well to being forced back into shape; if a dent is really just cosmetic and/or it would require a ton of disassembly to give you the access you need to push it out you might just want to let it go. I'd really make the priority firming up the palmrest, if it's separated enough to be annoying. There really isn't any way you're going to make it look like new again short of replacing the damaged chassis pieces with new ones anyway. When this material is dented it irreversibly stretches the metal so even if you could perfectly push out an inward dent it'd just create a rippled bubble in its place.

They used to sell these snap-on plastic covers for the 17" Powerbooks; personally I'm not at all fond of them because the thickness of the plastic reduces the angle to which you can open the screen, but if you could find one as old-stock you could cover up the damage with one of those. (Assuming the PB isn't so bent the cover will have trouble snapping on.) Or just embrace the "road warrior" thing and cover the worst blemishes with holograms and bumper stickers.

 

[sadmanonatrain]

Hello,

The 17'' PowerBook I had a while ago was badly dented on the left hand and side of the lower case. So I decided to tap the damage out with a tack hammer. I managed to tap out the worst of it out but alas it did not look right. In the end I bought a replacement part for a tenner.

It might be worthwhile it try and tap out some of the damage but your cosmetic mileage may vary.

 

[J English Smith]

I hope Elfen is feeling better soon! Joe from Des Moines sends his best.

 

[Elfen]

Thanks Joe from Des Moines. I posted an update on his medical thread:

https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/23626-medical-update-916-health-scare/&do=findComment&comment=245441

SadManOnATrain - interesting to hear. We will open this powerbook and see if we can at least straighten out the case at least, though like Gorgonops had stated about warped cookie sheets, it might not be fixable.