Hi,
I have a Pismo that had a very vinegar-y display. I replaced the display a while ago so that's taken care of, but I've noticed there was some corrosion on the "Clutch/Brace, Wire Side" part (922-4181 and 922-4182), specifically the triangle-shaped parts that go into the lower half of the PowerBook, and have the holes where the screws that hold the top upper and lower clamshell halves together are screwed in. There's so much corrosion that I actually have to make a reasonable amount of force to remove and insert those parts (in the third photo you can see the left side is "floating" a bit since it just stays on that position unless I push it down).
At the time I assumed corrosion was caused by the laptop being stored on the room with the worst environment in my apartment for too long while I lived overseas (cold and moisty), as a common cause for it and the display being ruined. But later, when watching @techknight videos (a big thank you for all your videos, I just started watching them as I get more into retro-Apple stuff!), I realized I had the cause and effect reversed, and the corrosion was actually coming from the goo being released from the display.
Now, the disk is dying and I'm about to replace it with an SSD, but I've been noticing that every time I pop the keyboard out, I can feel the smell coming from inside the lower clamshell of the Powerbook. So, I'm thinking about taking the opportunity to actually disassembling everything and cleaning it up, replacing the thermal paste, etc, not just to avoid more corrosion but because I'm afraid whatever gas this is producing will contaminate the new panel again.
Which leads to my question: I don't know yet what I'm going to find, but as in many of the videos of folks in this forum, I suspect the stiffener (aka the metal frame) may be somewhat corroded as well. I've seen many videos with machines in that condition but not yet how you end up cleaning them (I may have missed some video where this is explained, of course). So… what's the best way to clean these things, in a way that corrosion doesn't continue to happen? I've read that scrubbing is bad since the metal is porous and scrubbing will make the corrosive agent go into those microscopic holes and continue to do its thing.
Thank you,
Miguel Arroz
EDIT: A small correction now that I look at the photos again, it's possible the corrosion is only on the bottom frame and not the clutch parts, I don't recall it very well. That would be great because I really, really don't want to completely remove those parts for clean-up, and then have to reroute all the cables through the hinges again…
EDIT 2: I just realized I posted this on the wrong sub-forum, as there's a specific PowerBook G3 one. Sorry… any moderator please feel free to move the thread to the right sub-forum. Thank you.
I have a Pismo that had a very vinegar-y display. I replaced the display a while ago so that's taken care of, but I've noticed there was some corrosion on the "Clutch/Brace, Wire Side" part (922-4181 and 922-4182), specifically the triangle-shaped parts that go into the lower half of the PowerBook, and have the holes where the screws that hold the top upper and lower clamshell halves together are screwed in. There's so much corrosion that I actually have to make a reasonable amount of force to remove and insert those parts (in the third photo you can see the left side is "floating" a bit since it just stays on that position unless I push it down).
At the time I assumed corrosion was caused by the laptop being stored on the room with the worst environment in my apartment for too long while I lived overseas (cold and moisty), as a common cause for it and the display being ruined. But later, when watching @techknight videos (a big thank you for all your videos, I just started watching them as I get more into retro-Apple stuff!), I realized I had the cause and effect reversed, and the corrosion was actually coming from the goo being released from the display.
Now, the disk is dying and I'm about to replace it with an SSD, but I've been noticing that every time I pop the keyboard out, I can feel the smell coming from inside the lower clamshell of the Powerbook. So, I'm thinking about taking the opportunity to actually disassembling everything and cleaning it up, replacing the thermal paste, etc, not just to avoid more corrosion but because I'm afraid whatever gas this is producing will contaminate the new panel again.
Which leads to my question: I don't know yet what I'm going to find, but as in many of the videos of folks in this forum, I suspect the stiffener (aka the metal frame) may be somewhat corroded as well. I've seen many videos with machines in that condition but not yet how you end up cleaning them (I may have missed some video where this is explained, of course). So… what's the best way to clean these things, in a way that corrosion doesn't continue to happen? I've read that scrubbing is bad since the metal is porous and scrubbing will make the corrosive agent go into those microscopic holes and continue to do its thing.
Thank you,
Miguel Arroz
EDIT: A small correction now that I look at the photos again, it's possible the corrosion is only on the bottom frame and not the clutch parts, I don't recall it very well. That would be great because I really, really don't want to completely remove those parts for clean-up, and then have to reroute all the cables through the hinges again…
EDIT 2: I just realized I posted this on the wrong sub-forum, as there's a specific PowerBook G3 one. Sorry… any moderator please feel free to move the thread to the right sub-forum. Thank you.
Last edited: