Keyboard replacement on Envy M7-N101DX

A disabled friend of my uncle's had an Envy M7-N101DX, and the keyboard had keys that weren't working reliably (D and G may or may not finally register after 50 presses). My uncle volunteered me to look at it. I did and said I'd try to replace the keyboard, so I ordered one on eBay. It arrived about a week ago, so I took it apart and found...I couldn't. Or wouldn't. I didn't realize until I had it taken apart that this was a unique issue. The keyboard wasn't the kind of replacement that most have, where it's a self-contained unit with a fairly rigid back that you just unscrew. No, this gets sandwiched in between the palmrest and some metal backing that has plastic melted to keep it in place. This video shows what I'm talking about; the metal area under the motherboard.

I told him that it looked like the whole palmrest had to be replaced to get it fixed, and I couldn't find anything that seemed to have what he needed that was new, and he decided to buy a new laptop. So, he has a nice new Y700 17" waiting for him, now that I've got it configured. I offered to take the broken laptop in trade for labor for everything, since his money's relatively limited, and I knew this would just be sitting around, never used. I could at least use it as a new Kodi system, and with its specs (i7 5500u, 16GB RAM, 940m), it had some potential as a computer I could do light gaming on. I'd just need to add a new drive(I wanted him to keep his old one, and I have a 240GB SSD sitting unused).

But, I can't believe that HP would make it so that you have replace the palmrest and keyboard as a single thing. I've gotta be missing something. Since I'm out the $30 for the keyboard anyway, and since I'm willing to work harder on my stuff, I'm thinking about taking another shot at it. Has anyone replaced the keyboard on one of these that can give some pointers? Or am I truly SOL? I'll have a wireless keyboard/touchpad combo for it, but it'd be nice to use its keyboard if I ever pick up and head over to a friend's.