broken neck, how to take apart neck

The process does require removal of the arm from the base unit;
as a replacement arm with display attached is often in one piece
if you buy one from a second hand source; a repaired & tested one
can be bought with arm attached for about $300.

An example of a 17" iMac G4 display with chrome arm, in resale
as a refurbished product from a third party vendor:
http://www.welovemacs.com/17lcdapturarm.html

To be sure you can get the correct replacement part(s) the model
of the computer and part numbers of the display, and arm should
be compared. The wires inside the arm sometimes add to the
problem once there is damage or wear from flexing.

If you have access to a repair manual or copy of an original Apple
service manual (often was in .pdf of about 14MB size) that would
have the exploded view and part numbers, plus the process of
taking the unit apart to test and replace most of the iMac sections.
Unfortunately, should someone have a copy of a pdf manual, they
are often too big to email or failures may occur in trying to send it.

There may be some images and basic take apart instructions online
from companies who may be reselling various iMac G4 parts. The
display arm does require some significant take-down to replace one.
And there's the need to properly connect wires, apply thermal paste
to the processor's heat exchanger piping, and other details.

Was the device insured by the sender, and is there any recourse
through where you bought it from, in getting some compensation
toward a retail repair in this matter?

Good luck & happy computing! 🙂

The chrome colored metal support of the iMac G4
has a compressed spring (or two?) inside and also
there are two large ball bearings in there...

Taking apart the metal section is not advised and
there appear to be few if any tools available to
the general public. Straightening the bent sections
inside the arm to make it function would require a
fair bit of work; once it were opened up. Not sure
of the ability of the metal to be re-formed again.

Getting into the display itself is possible, as there
are parts in that housing which an expert could
replace in event of a partial or full display failure.

If you could find someone with the correct service
manual who could fax you the proper pages from it,
that would be able to show some of the steps. The
whole manual, such as a trained authorized tech
would have in his or her possession, would be the
thing to have. Some nearly complete novices have
taken apart these iMac G4s and removed the arm
and taken off the display, to run these 'headless.'

An informed contributor to these forum pages to
inquire about detailed information in these iMac
G4 computers, would be MrTotes. He has a web
page with images and has been into them a bit.
You may be able to email him or get his attention.

For now, short of having a way to share the 14MB
file on iMac G4 2.0 service manual, which I don't
have a practical way of sharing the contents, I am
going to say: Don't give up just yet. Think Adventure.

Good luck & happy computing! 🙂

PS: sometimes, you can find a computer such as
yours with other sample defects which did not
affect the display or chrome support arm. Cheap.
Or free. I bought one used iMac G4 last year and
it came with another one, needing a logic board.
$350. was a bit high, but I did get a nice box, too!

(So, now I have three working iMac G4s & one not.)

The image I was trying to remember, which shows
the internal mechanism of the chrome metal arm
that supports an iMac G4's LCD panel, was found
in and among other similar topic ones on this page:

"What's inside the iMac G4 Neck?"
http://homepage.mac.com/mactechg4/PhotoAlbum22.html

{There are some fairly nice images of this component, here.}

The link to this page was finally recovered in my computer
after I decided to use Find and look through what it found.

Were you able to contact mrtotes about his takeapart pages
online? If I am not mistaken, one URL is something like this:
http://www.mrtotes.co.uk/page1/page1.html (I've this in pdf.)

Also, I noticed that you'd accidentally double-posted the same
content and so pointed that out to the forum moderators to fix.

Hopefully your iMac G4 project will be as much fun as you'd hoped.
Good luck & happy computing! 🙂

Just looking at the pictures in the .mac web site showing the neck
and the inside bits, springs, and things; these almost gave me a
neck-ache! Good to hear you have gotten the part and fixed it.

Hopefully that's all and well now...
Good luck & happy computing! 🙂

You are welcome!

And remember:

"What's inside the iMac G4 Neck?"
http://homepage.mac.com/mactechg4/PhotoAlbum22.html

Be careful what you ask...
Good luck & happy computing! 🙂