Durzel,
Well if I'm totally 100% honest, I took the PS2 apart to get the main board out and put it all back together again, did all but 8 of the connections myself but I did pay a guy £10 to do these last 8 as they were so incredibly tight. The chip itself is only about 15mm long so you see on the attached picture how tight things are....
Mine is a version 3 which is supposed to be the most difficult to do, apparently versions 4 & 5 are easier...
Do you know of any good sources for Japanese games then?
Peter.