External Speaker on while earbuds are in after water damage

"Washed" my 2nd gen touch and left it in a bowl of rice for a few days as suggested here many times, and am proud to report very good results!

Almost everything works as normal!

I believe my savior was a dead battery prior to washing.

To the main problem:

The external speaker continues to play even with the ear buds plugged in.

The iPod shows no signs of knowing that buds are plugged in (does not pause when buds are unplugged with music playing) although it does play music and normal sounds through the buds and the external simultaneously.

I rarely use the external speaker and just getting it to turn off would be a descent band-aid fix but I would like to keep full function of all of my iPod's features.

I am not afraid of tearing the iPod down but I may need to invest in an iPod specific opener because I was hearing bad things when trying to get it open with a small flat head screwdriver.

Thanks!