Hey everyone, new to the site but you all have the reputation for being VB experts, so I’d love your opinion.

I recently noticed my VB’s right eye has the horizontal line issue, so I looked up some videos and decided I could repair it myself. I bought heating iron and some appropriate size gamebits.

Today I went to remove the case and could remove all but 2 screws. These ones were stripped and NOT coming out. I tried rubber bands, pen tricks, glue, grabit drill bits …nothing. It’s started to get to the point where the black plastic is starting to get worn around the edges from my digging.

I gave up. I figured my VB would now just be a decoration in my room.

But I got to thinking about cutting through some of the plastic bottom of the casing where the screws are. If i cut carefully enough, got it off, and then bought a replacement case off eBay just to use the bottom, and put that onto it, would there be any issues you could think of?

Is that what you would do in my situation? I’m thankful for any advice you could give!

Hi I had a similar issue with mine, taking it apart the first time was a real pain and I also dug into the black posts. Don’t worry, the case can take a beating and it’ll survive.
Gamebits can still be removed fairly hassle-free even if they’re stripped simply due to the number of grooves on them, so the fact that yours aren’t coming out just means time’s taken its toll on them and nothing more. I’ve had the exact same thing happen with a Game Boy and ultimately I just tore off the back shell (had no other choice).

One thing I’d recommend is to see if you can use a small rotary drill and cut a flathead-style notch into the screw, then try to use a flathead to taken them out if you can. That’s only really plausible for the ones underneath the cartridge slot though.
Have you tried using some WD40 to lubricate the posts/screws, waiting a bit then trying to take them out? Might take some torque but that could work.
Alternatively if you have a fine and long enough solder tip then perhaps soldering a long gamebit screwdriver onto the screw and then attempted to unscrew could work. You’ll have to sacrifice a screwdriver though.
And my final thought is that sometimes screwing then unscrewing works. It seems counterintuitive but occassionally it comes through. Using epoxy resin on the screws for the sacrificial screwdriver method can be a possibility, but I’d be careful with that stuff.

That’s all I can think of, but good luck! I hope everything turns out alright, and also welcome to the community!

Thanks for the reply!

Of the two stripped screws, one is one of the deep set screws to the left of the cartridge slot, and the other is the single screw under the lenses. I know my security bit driver reaches the deep one, because it was able to get out its twin on the other side. It just won’t catch with this one, so it may be worth sacrificing a cheap screwdriver to see if I can somehow move it.

The screw near the lens is totally stripped and practically a circle now, since I spent all day working at it and it won’t budge. I haven’t tried the WD40 or epoxy though. Might be worth a shot!

If neither of those work, I may just end up using a dremel to cut away the plastic in two small areas and lift the bottom off before taking a pair of pliers to the screws. We will see what happens!

If you have the tool for it and this would be precision a bit, but do not cut the VB itself, destroy of sorts the screw.

Get a fine bit and drill out the center of it as much as you can, then find something to put into that hole, like an even narrower screw or some other kind of catch and twist it out that way.