Anyone reassemble a Trace Elliot footpedal?

[rtav]

Hey TBers!

After scouring the web for days, I can't find an answer to this question.

I got a TE Dirtbox that had a number of probs with it (mostly that it doesn't do bass at all lol), but I had to open it to fix another problem with the input jacks. Since that's fixed, I need to put the thing back together.

HOWEVER...

This thing has very tall pot stems on the top and tall input jacks on the edge and I can't find a "safe" way to put the board back in the 1 piece solid metal housing without either breaking one of the input jacks off of the board (which was just fixed) or the pot stems! Argh!

I suspect that other TE pedals are the same sort of design (SMX compressor, quad chorus, etc.) and so I thought I'd check to see if anyone has successfully reassembled a TE pedal without breaking a pot stem or an input jack? Is there a secret to getting the damned thing back in one piece?

If you've never opened one and worked on it, you can't imagine how hard this could be! Any help is appreciated!

At the same time, if anyone has experience in modding pedals for bass use, I'd like to hear from you bc I love all things TE and don't want to sell the box if I can mod it to get better low end, but I know nothing about mods, caps, etc.

THANKS!!!

[bongomania]

If you think about it, the board came out by bending some components (likely the pot legs or stems). So that's the risk/approach you'll have to take to get it back in. It's possible the original factory assembly involved attaching the loose pots to the housing, then inserting the board, lining the pot legs up with the holes in the board, and then soldering the pots to the board. So you could try desoldering the pots in order to get more movement, and then resoldering them once you have the board back in place.