Just picked up a 2011 13" MBP, the thing needs some TLC and I was looking around classifieds and I found broken 2010 MBP's with dead logic boards.

Now the things I was hoping to take from the 2010 model were, battery and the casing.

To my understanding the batteries are interchangeable. But what about the actual case/housing of the entire unit?

From looking at the images online, both units appear to have the same amount of ports/connections on the left side.

Can anyone provide any advice?

Thanks

Well, made some progress on this.

Managed to find 4 screws that actually fit and are able to hold the hard drive in place, then I noticed the previous guy when installing the hard drive twisted the ribbon cable completely - luckily nothing was snapped but a simple straightening out of it and proper orientation made it nice and flat again. So the drive is now secured.

I also picked up 70% rubbing alcohol and a microfibre cloth and gave it another good wipe down, seemed to help a bit. Also used some compressed air to clean it out a bit. Hopefully this gets rid of the smoker smell.

Also managed to find the missing lower case screws along with the 1 rubber foot I needed for the bottom from a guy on some local classifieds. And picked up a used battery from him cause the one I had was swollen and completely dead.

Macbook runs fine now, no issues with it. However one concern I do have is that the battery I picked up (cheap) was missing the rubber pocket like thing on it, not sure how to explain it but basically its the part that was swollen on the battery that was in the MBP that I picked up.

Worried for nothing or is this an actual concern?

Well I took a better glance at the laptop and its actually in better condition that I thought, most of it was dirt and crap that I was able to clean up.

Looks like the top case is actually fine itself and doesn't need replacing. Just a good scrubbing.

However I do have a few questions;

1) Best way to clean the actual macbook and get dirt/smell of it from the previous owner. It was in a smoking environment. I used some kleenex and windex and lightly brushed across it a few times and it seemed to help but I still see some stuff. Also used a qtip to go in between the keys to remove dirt.

2) The hard drive is missing the 4 small screws/pegs that keep it stable in the position. Can those be picked up or does any hardware store carry these small screws?

3) The lower case could use a replacing, missing 1 of the 4 rubber feet as well as a couple of screws that actually hold the lower case to the mac.