There was a Reflector thread on the FT817 mod a few years ago:
It includes a photo of the front panel circuit board, showing the state of the solder links after the mod. These are printed circuit pads bridged (or not) with solder, seen just above the black circular component towards the left side (tuning encoder):
I carried out this mod on my 817ND. It wasn’t difficult, you just need somwhere clean to open it up, a fine soldering iron and solder sucker, and a steady hand so that you don’t melt any of the surrounding components!
Edit: I should say it is not my intention to provide full instructions, just pointing out that the mechanical work required is not too demanding…
73
Adrian
G4AZS