How to replace iPhone camera bezel

Nate, Apple has made the whole situation with the rear camera bezel and the rear glass such a pain in the wazoo. As you've probably found, the top of the bezel is larger than the hole in the glass, so it's impossible to replace just the glass with a piece that's cut to the size of the original because the hole for the bezel wont fit over it. The solution most people use is to make the hole for the bezel larger; big enough to fit over the bezel, which means it's going to leave a gap between the top of the bezel and the frame it sits on.

The obvious solution here would be to remove the bezel first, put down the glass (with the proper size hole) and then secure the bezel back. Unfortunately that's much easier said than done. If you look inside the hole for the bezel, you'll see a series of very tiny weld marks where the bezel has been spot welded to the frame. That means A) it's going to be really hard to remove, and B) it's going to be nearly impossible to resecure it the same as it was originally.

I assume there are many brute force methods of getting the old bezel off; I would imagine the cleanest would be to go around the inside with a Dremel tool and grind the mounting points off. You'd have to be careful not to grind too deeply as you don't want to damage the frame part any more than the bare minimum in order to leave that surface intact for mounting the replacement bezel.

Once you have the old bezel off, it's then time to do the rear glass; that's how they're manufactured in the first place. So you glue down the rear glass onto the frame and let it dry.

Final step is to figure out how to resecure the replacement bezel. I don't know if it's possible to jury-rig one of those battery arc welding devices to work in this situation; it would be great if that worked as it'll give you an attachment as close to the original method as I can come up with. Alternatively, I suppose it might be possible to solder it in place; if you tin the outside of the bezel where it attaches to the frame, then it might be possible to solder it in place, making sure the solder flows into the gap and not leaving any lumps on the frame that would interfere with the camera mounting position.

Those are my ideas on accomplishing what you're trying to do; there are a lot of very smart people on here who may have other ideas that could help.

Good luck, my man; let us know what you come up with and how it turns out.