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 move the gray display data and black speaker cables to the right. This will reveal a silver screw securing the fan housing to the lower case.
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.
Disconnect the display data cable by pulling up on the black plastic pull-tab. If there is no pull-tab on the top of the connector, it may be helpful to use a spudger to disconnect this connector.
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.
Unfortunately not all A1181s use the replaceable battery - some use a Super-Cap. Certainly mine did, after spending 1/2 hour opening it up and flipper the case over I find no replaceable battery, rather a small device labeled “V C2800” almost under J4501 (HDD). Mine charges up to 2.8V with the AC power adapter hooked up, but quickly discharges to 0.9VDC once power is removed. I shall see if the SuperCap at Digi-Key works better…https://www.digikey.ca/product-detail/en...
My Black A1181 had a BR1632 battery, and a straighter heat sink pipe.. but the battery was just underneath the DVD drive so no need to go through all this wor to remove the board and heat sink. Just unscrew the DVD drive, tape, and 5 cable connectors…
Also … actually if U don’t have a BR1632 a CR2016 fits snugly ( bit larger diameter) but only 100mAh vs the C2025 which has 160-170mAh and CR2032 which has 210mAh. I went with the CR2025 , cables still routed around it enough to fit the DVD drive back in over the top.