Thanks for all the positive feedback. nice reading material :D
glad i can help out

Decent tutorial. It saved me a lot of time. Last night I lost the ability to scroll upwards, but could still scroll side to side and down without a problem. Disassembled the trackball and cleaned the wheels a little, took a little dust off the contact, reassembled, and it worked fine. Thx!

Great pics evenmosbek,... thanks from BBF.

@jheiney -- the RIM recommended fix for a stuck trackball is to press firmly and roll the trackball in the direction in which it is stuck. Often it is just lint or accumulated dust. But cleaning it worked well too, glad to hear.

Ellooo

ONLY DO THIS IF YOUR 110% COMFORTABLE WITH YOURSELF.

Reason being:

I watched my friend attempting this, well put it this way, he lost the roller and the white plastic bit aswell.

How?

When he attempted to take the actual trackball and the part with itm the thing popped out and still we cannot find all the parts.

Its a fiddly process, so beware if you are going to try it.

sad to hear that.
if you study my pictures very careful, you can see how im holding the trackball when im taking it a part. this way, nothing will pop out.

Step 2 is updated

Good info!

Great post! My bb is new and hopefully I won't have to clean the track ball. I will try duct tape

K

I just take a Clorox wipe to it and it works flawlessly...

Many thanks

u r welcome

My Curve was hardly scrolling down at all, completely unusable. I was a bit worried about the full procedure outlined here, and i did a halfway job that fully restored my Curve. I took the ball assembly out and gave it a good cleaning with rubbing alchohol and Q-Tip swab, along with strong puffs of air (from the mouth).
Takng the ball assembly out of the handset lets the ball move more during cleaning, and allows blowing air through it.
Note, there are low spots under the silver ring at 2 o'clock and 10 o'clock, which appear to be best places to pry with a small screwdriver.
I did not take apart the ball assembly, and i'm glad it wasn't needed!

thx, brikah

I have taken mine apart to clean it with the intention of getting the trackball white/clear again...after following the instructions and carefully removing the trackball assembly and cleaning all the surfaces with 99% isopropyl alcohol (with the power off and the battery out), I found that the trackball works better now (more responsive), but it didn't come clean like new again...looks like the reason behind this is because the trackball is porous, i.e. it soaks in oil and dirt from our fingers.
I have found replacements on ebay for dirt cheap (and the seller has a 100% feedback score!)...I'm looking at $6 plus shipping ($6 again, so $12 in total!). Most online stores are selling this little assembly for around $50!
There is also a replacement lens cover so if yours is all scratched up like mine, a lens cover replacement is the way to go...it is about $10 on ebay with shipping!
There are also replacements for everything else you can think of, the battery, the battery cover, the faceplate, the keyboard, you could theoretically replace everything replaceable for around $60!

WOW awesome...I was skectipal in trying this as when I try this sort of stuff it always messes up but I took a chance and my BB is like new!...Thank You

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Ur welcome my friend. Glad i could help. Cheers

Same here!

Just got my first BB (Rogers 8100) and I am happy to have found such a good board.

Cheers

M2Q

I have just looked at your guide to cleaning a trackball and I have to say that although it is very clear it looks so fiddly it looks harder that artificially inseminating a queen bee (I speak as a beekeeper). When my trakcball gets dirty I shall probably chicken out and have it taken to a shop to have it cleaned. But as Chrscott22 says "awesome tutorial"

great guide dude! because i was really getting annoyed with this dirty greasy trackball...

I had to clean my trackball yesterday, and the first thing I did was go to google and put in "Clean trackball blackberry" and I got a ton of results, but NONE of them were as in depth as this one. It surprises me that this one wasn't even in the top 50 pages that showed up. We should write google or something ;). This is seriously the best guide, and I know TONS Of people who aren't signed up here, and that DO need to clean. Google fix this! haha.

PS- Great Guide ;) that would be the central theme of my rant.