How to Remove and Clean your Blackberry Curve Trackball

My Blackberry Curve 8310's trackball got a bit sticky this week so I did some research and found a post on the Crackberry.com website about how to fix it. I tried it myself and was fortunately successful. You can click the title above to go to the forum post and/or check out my photos and steps.

PERFORM AT YOUR OWN RISK. Click on the images for a higher res image.

1) Grab something pointy, somewhat rigid, and PLASTIC. You don't want to booger up the plastic around the trackball encasement because if you have to take it back to your wireless provider when it breaks they will know what you have been doing. Try these plastic teeth flossers. They worked for me. The tips bent a bit but were rigid enough for me to work around the edge.


Lightly push the plastic utensil under the plastic cover, and lift slowly. It will pop, and then you can move around to the sides so each additional clasp will release. I lifted it too fast from the bottom and broke one of the four clasps. If the cover lifts a little, the clasp has released. Don't lift it too high until you think all four clasps have released.


Now the trackball housing is exposed. You just need to turn the phone over, tap it on the back, and voila...the housing falls out. Be careful because the parts are tiny!!



You can see where I broke the clasp. It is on the top left side. On the right is the housing with top cover, ball, rollers, and bottom cover. Here is a pic of the inside of the phone. May not hurt to clean off the pick-ups where each roller sits. Actually I really don't know if they are pick-ups, but just so happen to have one in each corner. I cleaned the gold contact (if that is what it is) as well with alcohol and a q-tip. This thing makes q-tips look big and clumsy.


Now you must carefully pry the bottom piece off the housing. Use a pin to lightly pry the metal clips back. The plastic bottom piece will lightly fall away (shown below on the right). Here is a pic to show the exposed housing with rollers and ball.


I removed all of the rollers and the ball and dropped them in alcohol. After sitting for a few minutes, I took a q-tip lightly soaked in alcohol and rubbed the grooves on the rollers clean. I also rubbed on the mini-magnets on the end of the rollers. Don't forget to clean the cup where the ball sits as well. I scrubbed on the ball for a bit but am not sure if it truly got cleaner at all.

I guess the trackball looks a bit more clear in this picture. Not sure why one of the rollers is scraped clean (far left). Maybe that was the culprit of my stickiness before I started?


See the dirty trackball cup on the right? The following picture shows it clean.


The next picture is a close up of the bottom piece. I showed this up close because I tried to attach it upside down and figured I could save you the confusion. Look at the previous picture and note the metal clips around the four sides. Two have 45 degree pieces and two have a whole cut out in them. The white plastic piece below attaches so that the metal spring/cup holds the ball tight.


After you get housing back together just lightly set it in the recess where it came from. Note: Look at the third photo in this post. Notice that one side of the housing has two small extensions and the other side doesn't. Then look at the fourth post. You can see the indentions where the small extensions sit. Don't force the housing back into the recess. It will fall into place when it is set in correctly. After that just lightly push the outer plastic piece into place and you are ready to go! Good luck.