Well, the minimum fee at IBM service dept is $700 - and that's just to pass it over the counter - i.e. before they start to do ANYTHING !
I'd suspect that the majority of their quotation covers the co$t$ of supplying a new mainboard - and the fitting of it.
Yes, your potential bill would bring tears to anyone's eyes, but dropping conductive liquids on to a printed circuit board - compact or otherwise - is likely to cause a lot of damage - even more so if the unit had any power on it - and ever yet more so if the computer was working away at the time.
You'd better tell us exactly what you get out of the computer NOW.
Any display at all, or just expensive "Red Indian Smoke Signals"?
Personally, I'd be most loath to hand over any IBM to the "Butchers of Wanchai" - that is unless you'd given up hope - and they offered a "No Fix, No Fee" deal.
As a matter of interest - I have a T42 & a T60P, and my daughter has a T43 & T60P.
I might be ready to relinquish my T42 which has multi-boot - 3 or was it 4 copies of XP-Pro & One partition given over to Vista --- if sufficient hard cash crossed my palm - and you'd have a lot of spares which you can use - like the battery, and {hopefully} the Hard Disk - and the LCD display - if you put your arm through the replacement T42. <Grin>.
My T42 has had little use in all the time I've had it, and the only reason I'm considering selling it is that your need seems to be greater than mine at the moment.
(Only) if you want - call me on 2577-5777 [08:30-22:00].