Isopropanol is commonly called isopropyl alcohol. It's found in pharmacies as "rubbing alcohol". Also sold in most hardware stores. Typically sold in strengths of 70% or 91%. The rest is water.

Isopropyl alcohol evaporates fairly quickly. The higher percentage of alcohol the faster the mixture will evaporate.

To deal with the evaporation, either work on a small area at a time, or wet the sticky part and wrap it in plastic wrap to allow the isopropyl alcohol to work for a time. Use a bit of paper towel to hold the alcohol where you want it.

You may want something to scrape off the goo rather than just trying to rub it off. iFixit has a soft plastic "iFixit Opening Tool" which will work, and may be safer for the underlying plastic than, say, a plastic paint scraper. The link has others options too, like the Spudger and Opening Picks.

Prying and Opening Tools

Get some "Goop" or other hand cleaner too. (Goop might also help remove the sticky paint. Haven't yet tried that.)

It would be nice if this addressed the waterproof adhesive, mentioned in Step 6. Doesn’t pulling the phone apart make it no longer watertight?

Some posts suggest putting the adhesive in the case first. This defeats the black plastic tabs on the adhesive. Note Steps 1 & 2 in the instructions. A bit of adhesive above the black plastic strips on one side adheres to the TOP side of the battery. This positions the black plastic strips at the foot of the battery. If you put the adhesive in the case first, the black plastic tabs will be upside down, and you'll have the tabs sticking up.

Look at the black plastic tabs to see which side of the plastic coverings to remove first, Remove the side which has the bit of adhesive first.

Alterations to instructions:

1. Put long part of adhesive on the battery first, then do the black plastic tabs. Alignment of the adhesive is easier.

2. Align the side of the battery with the side of the iPhone case, leaving 1/16"/1mm at bottom, then fold the battery down into the phone. This allows for easy top and bottom alignment. Check that the adhesive will not touch the Upper Component Cable before folding the battery down.

Parts list calls for:

iPhone 5s Logic Board Grounding Bracket and Contact Clip

not sure why.

Instructions at link for these parts says they are "visible in steps 53 through 56 of the Upper Component Cable Replacement guide". Not quite right.

- Steps 56 & 57 show removal of the Logic Board Grounding Bracket, but instructions call it the “logic board antenna bracket”. Screw that goes through the logic board into this is marked in red on step 30.

- “Small metal contact beneath logic board” referred to in Step 30 goes under the Logic Board Grounding Bracket. See also Step 34.

- Step 59 shows removal of the Contact Clip.

1. Be very careful not to pry near the top of the battery if the adhesive breaks during removal. It's tempting to use a long plastic probe/spudger at the top of the battery: there is more space there than on the side. Don't. The upper component cable is under the top of the battery. It's easy to catch with whatever you use to pry. I damaged mine, and now the power button, video microphone, flash, and mute switch don't work. (Luckily the volume buttons still do.) Even from the side, be careful not to pry near the top.

2. I put the adhesive on the case first. This left plenty of tab at the end of the adhesive strips, but this didn't help when I found I had a defective replacement. The adhesive tore. It's possible the adhesive is directional, and meant to go on the battery first.

3. Pulling the adhesive to the side is not recommended by 3M for their Command hooks, which use similar adhesive.

http://www.command.com/3M/en_US/command/...

4. Replacement adhesive I got was thicker than the original.

The strips come with a single piece of plastic covering both strips ("double strip cover") on one side, and single pieces of plastic covering each strip individually on the other side ("single strip covers"). If you pull off the single strip covers first, the double strip cover holds the two strips aligned. This makes it easy to position them.

If instead you pull off the double strip cover first, you are left with two individual strips, and have a harder job attaching them. So I think it's clear that you pull off the single strip covers first, regardless of the color of the plastic covering.