Did it! The plastic levers weren’t quite strong enough to get into the seam, so I used a set of three convex Exacto-knife blades. (Look on youtube cited above for guidance).
A tip: wrap all but the last 1 cm of the exacto knife blade in tape (masking, duct, whatever) so that you have minimum sharp cutting edge exposed and DEFINITELY do this work on a table or some other solid surface.
Once open, the only hitch was the battery-motherboard connector. As several previous posts note, don’ just pull on it. CRUCIAL: The brown-grey plastic bit is on a toggle. Just use the little plastic piece to push it back (away from the wire, towards the metal frame -you’ll feel a little click) and the wire comes out easily. Repeat, pushing in opposite direction to attach battery link wire afterwards.
Didn’t undo the earphone wire. Putting the thing back together was easy-peasy. Wife is in next room blasting music from the iPod on the stereo. Thank you, iFixit!
