How to Skin (or Shuck) a Shelby (+ Push Start)
I’m not going to lie to you: It was super hard to figure out how to open my Shelby. It took me maybe an hour of solid Google-ing to find any information, and it culminated in precisely one defunct website from 2002 that, upon later Google-ing, I could not find again. I owe that website my life, and if anyone can find it again, I’ll be very grateful.
1) Peel back the fur
You may have noticed all the screws on the bottom of your shelb. I don’t know what they hold in, but the good news is that you don’t need to either! Instead, you’ll want to comb through your Shelby’s fur until you find 5 screws: 2 lower on the back, 2 on the top behind Shelby’s ‘tennies, and 1 off-center in front of the ‘tennies. All these screws are slightly different sizes, so keep track of where they all go.
(This Shelby’s screws are very rusty, by the way. Yours probably won’t look quite so awful. They’ll also be very hard to find on shelbies with darker fluff)
You should be able to pull the fur and it’s plastic backing away from Shelby’s body now. It’s glued on at the bottom, but the fur doesn’t need to come off all the way, so you can leave that alone.
2) Free the shell
This one’s a little weird: When Shelby is facing you, you will find a screw on the left side of the body, screwed into the shell. Remove this screw and the piece it holds in. Do not repeat this step on the other side.
Here’s what it looks like inside the shell. The tapered side ends just inside the piece that holds Shelby’s eyelashes/unibrow in, and is only attached by the one screw. Again, completely ignore the matching piece on the right side of the shell. Though it’s the same part, it doesn’t do anything.
This piece is important to remove because it forms one half of the hinge that keeps Shelby’s shell from opening too far.
3) Remove the shell
You should be able to now wiggle the shell around pretty freely. To get it off, you need to rotate it 90 degrees and lift it over the ‘tennies. Rotating it is pretty tricky, because the fit around the base of the ‘tennies is pretty tight, but there’s a certain sweet spot that lets the shell rotate pretty smoothly. Just keep wiggling and twisting gently and you should be able to get it in the right spot, which looks like this:
Then it’s just a simple matter of maneuvering the ‘tennies through the slot!
Congratulations, you’ve done it! You may notice that Shelby looks a lot different from a Furby. Specifically, the speaker, motor, and cam gears are absolutely buried under each other! While it’s nowhere nearly as easy, you can still push-start a Shelby.
+) Push-starting
If you look in through the top of Shelby’s head, just about above the right eye, you should be able to see the cam. If you’re lucky, one of the 3-ish gears you’ll be able to see has a nub (very similar to the ones I talk about in my sync screw guide) that you can reach with a long, sturdy tool like a flathead screwdriver. With batteries in the shelb, gently push on the gear. Be ready to pull your tool out as quickly as you can, because just the lightest pressure can bring a Shelby out of a coma!
It is absolutely vital that you are gentle with these gears! If you apply too much pressure, you run the risk of warping the gear, and even the slightest scratch or bent tooth can permanently ruin these little bots. Use caution and never try to brute force plastic pieces!
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