Remove the four 3 mm indicated Phillips #00 screws from the front wall of the battery compartment. When working from the left, remove the 2nd, 4th, 7th and 9th screw.
Starting near the display and working around to the front of the computer, pry up on the upper case. It is held with clips on the right above the optical drive. These will release with some firm lifting pressure.
Be careful when prying up the upper case. It's very easy to slice open a fingertip and thus provide the blood sacrifice the Mac gods sometimes require of those who insist on doing their own repairs.
There's a trackpad and keyboard ribbon connecting the upper case to the logic board, so don't pull the upper case off entirely just yet.
If you have trouble getting the clips to release, be careful that you are not prying the plastic top of the upper case away from its metal frame.
While holding up the upper case (from the bottom or the top), use a spudger to pry up the orange trackpad and keyboard cable from its connector.
Take care to pry between the black socket and the white connector. You might have to pry on both sides for it to release properly.
Do not pry from the bottom or the top, but from the sides.
If you happen to break your upper case cable when removing the upper case, we stock the cable individually and we have a guide that makes replacing it easy.
Use a spudger to carefully disconnect the microphone cable from the logic board. You'll want to work from side to side, and slowly wiggle the connector out of its socket.
Pulling on this connector vertically will break the socket off the logic board. This connector should be removed horizontally by gently pulling the microphone cable toward the screen while working a spudger between the connector and the socket.
Hold the heat sink with one hand and the fan with your other hand, and lift the heat sink and fan assembly out of the computer. The fan is attached to the heat sink only with a strip of black felt tape, so be sure to remove both parts as a unit
If you need to mount the heat sink back into the laptop, we have a thermal paste guide that makes replacing the thermal compound easy.
Use a spudger to rotate the MagSafe board up and out of its housing. It may be helpful to pull the lower case out slightly to provide additional clearance.
Lift the logic board up from the right side, and slide it up and out of the computer. Be careful that the right speaker, MagSafe board, and battery connector don't catch on the lower case.
Carefully lift the hard drive connector out of the case slightly, and turn it over to reveal the IR sensor connector beneath. Use a spudger to flip up the plastic hinge of the tiny bar holding the cable in place.
Slide the orange IR sensor cable out of its connector, and lift the hard drive connector out of the computer.
These are excellent instructions. To replace just the keyboard/top case will take about 15 minutes.
To replace the bottom case will take about two hours.
In addition to the coin, phillips head screwdriver and spudger, I recommend working on a large towel, and having some scotch tape.
Working on the towel will save you time and aggravation if a screw gets away from you - it won't go very far.
Print out the instructions from the PDF document. As you remove the screws, us a piece of tape to grab the screws, fold over part of the tape to keep them secure, and then tape the screws to the step in the disassembly process.
When you get to the point of reassembly, your parts will be right there at the step as you need them.
Thanks to the people at iFixIt for their excellent guides, and their excellent support and response time to questions/posts! Awesome job!