Warning: This is an unofficial and incomplete disassembly that I did a year or so ago because no one would repair my salt water corroded camera and I figured I might as well try. Use at your own risk.
A few checklists first:
- Make sure you have a tray to keep track of all your screws.
- Even if you don't damage any electronic components during the disassembly/reassembly process you should assume that the weather sealing that came with the body is completely busted.
- Plumbers tape is necessary to tighten screws (some places call it thread seal tape).
- Disassembling the body completely requires a soldering/desoldering kit. Make sure you familiarize yourself with these tools, and even with these tools, you will very likely destroy some of the functional modules of the top plate (GPS, microphones, speaker.
- The SR system is calibrated during manufacturing. Messing with the logic board in any way shape or form is likely going to cause focus and SR issues even if no components are damaged.
- Remove lens and battery, put on lens cap before working.
Basic instructions:
1. Remove all bottom plate screws. This includes the screw next to the shutter release cable port and two hidden in the battery compartment.
2. Remove bottom plate.
3. Remove all top plate screws. This includes the screw above the lock graphic button near the "RAW/Fx1 button", the two on the left and right of the viewfinder, and also another screw hidden under the leather thumb guard below the AF / AE-L buttons.
4. Remove all back plate screws. There is one hidden under the shutter release cable rubber.
5. Lift the top plate at most 1 inch away from the body. You will see a ribbon cable attached to the top side of the main body, and some loose wires attached to the back side of the main body. Tilt the top plate away from the shutter button side and towards the PASM dial.
6. Detach the ribbon cable carefully.
7. While holding the top plate near the body to prevent the loose wires ripping, slowly tilt the camera body so it rests on the lens mount. [The backplate is rickety during this step, so be careful about how you handle the main body]
8. Rest the top plate against a surface to prevent any tension on the loose wires.
9. Wiggle the back plate loose and lift it up at most half an inch. You will see two ribbon cables attached to the main logic board.
10. Tilt the back plate away from the viewfinder and towards the tripod screw thread. Detach the two ribbon cables. The back plate can now be disconnected safely and the main logic board can now be accessed.
11. From the perspective where the viewfinder is at center top, detach all ribbons at the top left of the logic board and desolder all loose wires. The top plate can now be safely removed.
12. Detach all remaining ribbons and desolder all remaining loose wires. The logic board can now be unscrewed from the main body. [Warning: I was able to access the corroded areas of my camera at this point already so I stopped here. From an assembly design standpoint it is unlikely that there will be ribbons or wiring on the other side of the logic board, but you should remove very carefully just in case.]
Unless there are very specific components you wish to access, I don't recommend removing the front plate as it is not very crucial to accessing the main components. If you really wish to do so, there is a small screw on the bottom side you need to remove after step 10. Rest the body on its bottom side after removing the screw, and then slowly wiggle the front plate loose.
- Technically speaking, you can also unscrew all of the individual modules of the top plate during steps 7-9 to detach the top plate, but you will have a lot of small components hanging loose and the reassembly of the top plate is extremely tricky. The disassembly of the components is difficult because many of the component wires are interwoven. NOT Recommended.