Replacing the glass on an iPod touch can be dangerous if it’s cracked. Be careful and wear gloves when handling broken glass. This guide takes you through replacing the screen and digitizer, not the LCD. It is assumed that your LCD is still functional.

We recommended that you use some tape to cover up the broken screen. This will contain any shards of glass if they break off of the screen while you remove it. Something like:

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Insert the plastic tool, or “spudger”, into the gap between the front panel glass and the chrome backing. We’ve found that guitar picks are useful as well if you don’t have a spudger or can’t get it to work. An easy place to start is the top-left, as shown:

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The glass sits on a plastic bezel that is held onto the chrome backing by metal clips. It’s helpful to use a metal tool to get the first clips off:

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Work your way carefully around the iPod unclipping those. Do not rush this part, as you could break some internals, or rip the digitizer ribbon (if you’re replacing the digitizer, it’s moot, but better go slower anyway).

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The digitizer ribbon is connected to the logic board at the top-left corner of the iPod. Disconnect this and you should be able to take the bezel, digitizer, glass assembly off.

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Hopefully you’ve ordered a spare bezel with your glass/digitizer replacement. It’s almost impossible to seperate this from the iPod and then from the broken glass without breaking it. If you got it off without breaking it, kudos. If it’s not too badly damaged, you can glue it together with superglue. If not, we need to attach the replacement bezel to the replacement glass and digitizer.

Your bezel probably did not come with a button attached. Pry the old button off of the old bezel if you are replacing it. Scrape off the small plastic dots so they become flush with the button’s backing. Then, pry off the button and place it on the new bezel.

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SLOWLY put the new glass/digitizer/bezel assembly back together, making sure the inside compartments are dust/fingerprint free, but also while aligning the button with the button hole on the glass. If you have particles on the LCD, tear a piece of paper and use the corner to carefully remove them. Smudge marks may be removed with a clean lens cloth.

If you’re careful, you can turn the iPod on at this point and get a display and a working digitizer. Turn the power off again and put the replacement in place, pressing lightly all the way around the edge of the glass. Hopefully, once you put the iPod back together, you get a display:

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Need more help? Send us an email at help@pcxmedics.com, or use our contact form.