CR-48+Lid+Alignment+Issues

=CR-48 Lid alignment Issues When Closed=

I began to notice that when I closed the lid of my Cr-48 it no longer aligned properly with the case underneath. Upon closer inspection I noticed I could gently slide it around on top of the case/keyboard thanks to some "flexibility" in the hinges where the case and lid are connected. So, given all of the hinge issues I'd been hearing about I assumed it was a broken case hinge so I began to follow this wiki document on how to repair your broken hinges. Once dismantled per that wiki I was surprised to find that my case hinges were just fine and in fact my problem seemed to be the axle going from the hinge inside the plastic tunnel; e.g. the metal bar disappearing to the left in . Some googling and posting to the official chromebook Google group didn't reveal any detailed steps on how to dismantle the lid so at the risk of breaking something (which is common for me in these situations) I pushed forward. The good news is I seem to have completed this repair and haven't broken anything so I figured I'd make this wiki for the benefit of others. Please note that I'm not claiming these steps are the best way to deal with this issue, I am merely sharing my experiences. If you have better tips/suggestions feel free to post them to the discussion section of this wiki.

// [Note: all pictures can be clicked for a zoomed-in version of same] //

=Steps I took:=
 * First off, dismantle your Cr-48 as detailed in this wiki document.
 * Next you need to remove the narrow, long cover that is in the top center of your Cr-48. This is where the axles from both sides disappear into. To remove this I stuck a medium sized plastic stick (about the size of a knitting needle) under the cover and above the axles and then simply wedged the cover upwards.
 * In the next picture you can see the cover is removed and is lying upside down above the Cr-48. Note the "hooks" circled in red; the one on the lid, when attached, goes under the one on the case. I was concerned that when I yanked the cover off that these would break off but to my surprise and relief they did not. No guarantees that yours won't however...


 * Now that the inner hinge is exposed, I simply removed the screws from it. For me, strangely, it didn't seem like my posts were broken but the leftmost and rightmost screws were basically lying in place as the threads from the poles for them seem to have vanished. The middle screw seemed to be reasonably well attached still however. Both of the tiny vertical stabilizers coming up from the posts and through the metal plates were broken, in fact, you can see one lying on the ground to the bottom right of the plate in the picture below:


 * I could not see how to get to the posts in the lid; I was hoping to drown them in epoxy but I couldn't figure out how to remove the metal plates without doing some serious breakdown of the screen itself. So, in the absence of any better ideas I gobbed lots of epoxy (JB Weld for me) on top of the plates and into the holes. I then simply re-attached the hinges (thus the metal plates of the hinges and the metal plates of the lid should now be glued together. Note in the out of focus photo below that I filled the screw holes with epoxy also.


 * Even though the case poles/hinges (i.e. the one on the right hand side in the photo above) were fine, I took everyone's advice and glued these also. However, I didn't see anywhere where people detailed exactly what they did with the glue so again I decided to glue the plates together and fill the holes with epoxy (see the epoxy in the holes and bulging out from underneath the screws in blue circles). I also gobbed epoxy on the vertical edges of the poles as in the red arrows below, I presume this should have the effect of reinforcing them and prevent them from breaking in future.

One word of caution: After I did this I realized that because I filled all of the holes with epoxy this included the hole that housed the external case screw. Thus, it is entirely possible that I may never be able to open my Cr-48 again (in case I want to upgrade the SSD, RAM etc etc). So I would advise against filling that one hole, if I recall, it is the rightmost hole on the right hand hinge and the left most on the left hand hinge but do __verify__ this. UPDATE 03-Nov-12: I had to open my CR48 again today and the "glued" screws unscrewed easily :-)

Further questions? Reply to the original thread or use the discussion page of this wiki (not sure if I'll be notified of that however). Best of luck!