A Bulletin Board from the backside of the internet

So, me being me, I bought an el-cheapo bluetooth audio transmitter that plugs into the dock connector of old iPods. I didn't feel like spending over $100 on a name brand actually good one, so instead I went the $20 route, which ended up in the position I am now.
I got annoyed with the terrible fit and finish before I could even take a picture of the thing before I ripped it apart. But it looks like this, and it sticks out even further from the device than you might think! So I couldn't live with that awfulness, so apart it came, which exposed a pretty large, very sparse PCB that could have been half the size. But here we are.. As you can see, it sticks out very far from the iPod, which completely runs the feel, look and portability. This needs to be fixed! So, the goal is to desolder the dock-connector from the board, and build up some mechanical structure to go from the connector to the back of the iPod, where the PCB can be mounted on the back, to essentially fold it together. There is a fair amount of metal to solder things to on the sticky-outy dock-connector, so my thinking is to solder up a mechanical structure of some type to span the gap, solder wires between the two and then encase the whole thing in epoxy or other suitable goop.
Here is the rough idea.. The PCB does fit quite well on the back of the device.

I there enough room inside the iPod to put the PCB inside, if you remove the connector? I assume the only connections it needs are the power and audio lines... And you would end up with an iPod with integrated Bluetooth.

Connectivity might be an issue though through the metal case...

Yes, that idea did cross my mind. That iPod is flash-modded with a CompactFlash card in place of the original Microdrive, so there is some room because the CF card is slightly thinner. But indeed the connectivity would be an issue. Not only is the casing aluminium, but there are metal ends under the plastic, and the drive is on the back of the PCB, which has a ground plane. So there really isn't any way to get the signal through. It would have been slick otherwise!

Damn you Steve Jobs for making your stylish music players into a faraday's cage!!

lol yeah! It would have been far better is it was some cheap plastic thing! Like a Zune!

Dankpods posted about something similar back in 2020. Now it’s your turn! Haha

Haha, indeed!
I did start this project, got bored, and not super eager to get it done because the BT Tx doesn't sound all thaaaaat amazing and you can't control the volume of it since it's using the dock line-out.. So it's been put on the back burner for now.