Chosen Solution

I have had some water damage done to my phone and used my screen (front panel) with a friend’s back panel, or body, who shattered his screen. Everything is working great, but the light and proximity sensor is not working at all and I keep hitting mute with my face. I have put the #3 cable back in sever times making sure flip the clip up and down and seem to have it all of the way inserted. It seems that the only way to get the metal case over cable 3, the proximity sensor off is to remove the glass, which id like to not do. Is there anyway to do this without taking off the glass? Thanks Update I did have to remove the LCD screen but not the glass front; I’m not sure which one is considered the digitizer. You can gently pry the sensor housing away from the frame and replace the sensor strip. Check out this video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-wjCFGW4… Update I was able to replace just the proximity sensor in about 30 minutes, without special tools, and for under $10. I don’t feel like the whole front assembly would be much easier and costs about 10 times as much. If you don’t get the proximity sensor working for some reason, then you could go ahead and get the whole front assembly, but I did not because I thought $100, was too much to spend for a small repair. Shopping results: http://www.google.com/products?q=iPhone+…

The glass can be purchased individually, but I’d suggest the frame+glass part to make things easy to deal with. It’s slightly more expensive but worth it compared to bare glass. If you need a guide to install it, this can be found here.

All you have to do is pull the metal bracket off from the rear of the phone. It is the black metal bracket. I use a pick type tool to get it off without a problem.

You need to replace the iPhone’s front panel assembly to correct this problem. This will fix the broken proximity sensor and the light sensor. It is easier than replacing just the sensors.

I did a write up to replace the ribbon, for anyone in the future that wants to attempt: iPhone 3GS Proximity Sensor Ribbon Replacement