Thanks.  I got it open.  Much appreciation to you.

There actually is one more trick I discovered after removing the screws from under the rubber feet:  There are some locking tabs at the TOP of the case, so after removing all the screws, the entire back has to be slid downwards about 1/4-inch to unlock the top tabs.

(Now, for the benefit of anyone else who was searching for this problem - - - )

Re-assembling the case of the 7960 Deskset was a liitle tricky also, getting the top tabs to latch into place.  Plus, I also had to use a flexible glue to repair the rubber feet which de-laminated when prying them off of the screw holes.

As for the "Floppy Footstand" issue that we originally had: 

I was able to fix it.  (Yay!)

What was Wrong:

The 7960 has a plastic 'leaf spring' that broke off inside our phone and was rattling around in there.  The plastic leaf's function is to return the 'ratchet' mechanism to a locking position against the footstand's gear teeth after the angle has been adjusted.

Of course there is no glue in the world that would hold the broken plastic in place at its original location without some kind of re-inforcement, due to the stress put onto it at that point. So the broken piece of plastic was discarded, and we came up with a few alternative ideas.

Our Final Solution:

I put a couple strips of foam 'weather seal' under the mechanism, near the top.  The weather seal is adhesive-backed, measuring about 3/8-inch wide and about 3/8-inch tall, cut into a length of about 2-inches.  I had to put one strip on top of another to build the height up.

Now, when the user presses the side button to un-lock the ratchet mechanism, the foam is compressed (ie: 'Squashed') and the ratchet mechanism then moves away to unlock the footstand.  And when the side button is released, the foam expands back to its normal size, pushing the mechanism back to re-lock the footstand (except it does so a little slower than the original plastic leaf spring, but Hey!  It works!)

The foam weather seal I used is rated to work for 5 years.  I don't know if it stays resilient for that long, but I figure we have at least 3 years before we have to deal with the situation again.

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Again, thank you for your help.  And thanks to Cisco for this forum, otherwise there would be no way to get any assistance at all.

(signed)
Ralph K.  AV Engineering

Panasonic Hollywood Laboratory

    Advanced Video Compression for Blu-ray Disk

Los Angeles, California - USA

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I am taking p.bevilacqua's advice and giving Ralph a big +5 for his breakdown on how he resolved his issue. I was also quite impressed with the ingenuity and analysis on the expected lifetime of the foam weather seal. Classic.

Regards,

Bill

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And thank you for the nice compliment!

Ralph Kalatucka, AV Engineering

Panasonic Hollywood Laboratory

Universal City, Los Angeles

And now for a partisan 'plug'...

If anyone is wondering what we do here at PHL, take a look at the recently released "Avatar" Blu-ray Disc.  It is just one of the many Blu-ray titles we've mastered over the past 4 years.

Panasonic is one of the founding members of the Blu-ray Disc Assosciation (and of the HDMI standards group) and pioneered the AVC-HD video compression format used for HDTV.

Yes, this current version of Avatar is only 2D because that's what Fox wanted right now.  The 3D version will be released later, after there are more Blu-ray players and 3D HDTV's available.

(Disclaimer: The words above are my own personal expression, and not part of any official Panasonic statement.)

Hey I'm internal an even I couldn't find this info 

Thanks for posting!