I achieved a similar expedient once. Prior to getting a "working" Titanium G4 Powerbook I salvaged a 550Mhz unit that had been sitting on a desk when a pipe burst over it. The motherboard was completely toast but I did get a working hard disk, optical drive, Airport card, and nearly new LCD panel out of it. (Ironically the system had a faulty screen replaced by AppleCare a few months before the pipe burst.) About a year later I was given a working 867Mhz machine that had a broken hinge. After making a few inquiries I found one of those places that did hinge replacements would be willing to swap me a hinge replacement service for the LCD panel I got out of the flooded Powerbook contingent on it being in working condition. It was, so all I paid was shipping.

W00t, or something.

(P.S. Note... for anyone who's not familiar with them, I didn't just swap lids between the two PowerBooks because the LCD from the water-damaged unit was the "original" 1152x768 resolution, while the 867Mhz units had the higher-res 1280x854 screen. The newer unit *might* of recognized the lower resolution if I'd swapped *panels*, but the cables didn't match so that would of been a nightmare of skinning the lids, regluing all the parts... the same things I would of had to do to change the hinge!)