Disassembling Motorola Startac 130

I gave my old mobile phone collection a spring clean recently to see if there is anything I could throw out to make room for a few recent acquisitions. As usual, every single one of them had a sentimental value so I decided to hold onto all of them again and revisit the issue in 12 months time.

While going thought the collection, I noticed that the keypad on my old, otherwise mint condition Motorola Startac 130 was peeling revealing clear plastic underneath. After weeks of ringing, emailing and googling I resigned myself to the fact that parts were no longer available for this phone and ended purchasing one on eBay to be stripped for parts.

Now that I had the parts I had to disassemble the phone. I was unable to find any proper disassembly instructions for this phone on the internet. I had to bite the bullet and proceeded to carefully take the sacrificial phone apart, knowing that if I did break anything, it would not be the end of the world. Now that I have taken it apart, I feel I need to share this experience so others in my position can benefit from it.

The procedure for disassembling the Startac 130 is as follows:

1. Remove the sim card cradle completely.
2. Retract the antenna and you should see a slot separated by the shaft of the antenna in the middle, then using a 2 pronged (forked) tool, unscrew the base of the antenna. I happened to have a forked head in my screw driver set which was perfect for the job. Now completely remove the antenna.
3. Next step is the tricky bit because you probably need 3 hands to pull it off. There are two holes on either side of the port at the base of the phone. With the keypad facing down, you need to insert a small screwdriver into both holes and push the tab inside downwards towards the keypad. At the same time you need to press down hard on the rear cover either side of the charging contact points and slide the rear cover of the phone (the side with the gold M) upwards as well towards the antenna. This should release the rear cover. You can now take a deep breath as that was the hard part.
4. You should now be looking at one of the two boards in the phone. Before you can remove them, you need to undo the clip that holds down the ribbon cable at the top of the phone.
   
5. Once the cable is unclipped, you may now carefully pry the two boards out at the same time. You will notice that you need to slide is upwards as it comes out of the phone casing. Take care not to dislodge the antenna tube casing.
6. Once out, you can now see the underside of the keypad.
7. You should now also be able to see both boards in the phone. They are held together by a connector which you can just pull apart gently like a press stud.

This pretty much gives you access to every bit of the phone. Reassembly is the same process in reverse. This procedure worked for me but follow it at your own risk.