I swapped the keyboard on my wife's X1 and man, they are so fiddly to get to these days. It used to be a 2 minute job but I think this took me nearly 2 hours! I had to remove practically everything to get to it.
Still happy with the result and I agree that 2nd hand business machines give great bang-for-buck. I adore my beater Dell Latitude for example.
Oh, it sucked haha - I totally agree. Glad I could do it though.
I believe mine was a gen 3 and I I had to remove everything and the keyboard is the last part you remove before putting the new one on. I assume it was similar for you considering the time spent?
The more traditional thinkpads have the dream situation where it just pops off, if I recall.
I had to stop and go out to purchase a Dremel to cut a notch in a screw on the main board that was stripped before I had gotten it. Good times!
Yes, exactly that, and some of the steps required removing kaptan (?) tape over rather fragile looking wires.
I think it used to be more or less "undo screw, remove cover, remove keyboard" ... with other parts being under the keyboard rather than vice versa. It's been a long time though.
One thing in favour of Lenovo and Thinkpad then and now is that you can download all the field service guides - so at least one isn't guessing which worryingly fragile part to remove next. Another point in favour of ex-corporate devices.
Still happy with the result and I agree that 2nd hand business machines give great bang-for-buck. I adore my beater Dell Latitude for example.