One night a while back, Yvonne was working on a jigsaw puzzle upstairs while I was working on an iMac downstairs — swapping out the power supply I think. At one point in the evening she walked by me and my project and said something like, “Who needs jigsaw puzzles when you’ve got 3-D puzzles to work on?” The G3 iMacs are definitely oddballs for computers, and real puzzles to take apart. And to put back together, which everyone knows is the real trick.
Recently, while checking my site stats, I noticed that for the umpteenth time (well, maybe the fifth time) someone made the jump here from a post on Applefritter. In that post, the guy was asking for help in taking apart a 1st generation bondi iMac. I steered him to a Google search that would’ve yielded him exactly what he was looking for (it did for me anyway.) He thought I was insulting him — if I had been, I would’ve made it more obvious — but anyway… It looks like most of the people clicking through to davintosh.com are coming here are looking for iMac disassembly instructions. So being the people-pleaser that I am, here are links to some of the instructions I’ve found to be useful.
Tray-load iMac (Rev. A – C)
MacOpz has a very thorough guide HERE. They go through the whole process of replacing the flyback transformer, but use what you need. Archive.
Slot-load iMac
Powerlogix has a great how-to HERE. Archive.
HERE is a strange animal; it looks like Apple’s Service Source repair manual pdf embedded in the page or converted to
some weird format.
Finally, THIS site has links to downloadable Apple hardware service manuals in pdf format for most every Apple product ever. Note that some of the links are dead and may not ever be fixed. Also unclear how kosher it is for them to even be available to the general public, as they are intended only for Apple-certified technicians… Proceed at your own risk.