Yeah, it blew up on him when he replaced the parts that looked bad. He bought a SAZ-3000D refurb from me. Lucky him. They sell very quickly when they become availible!
The grease is definately NOT lithium grease... LOL! It's thermal compound. Can be had for $5-6 per tube... it IS okay to reuse what is there. Unless the amp is like 6 years or so old and the grease is really hard (like clay) only then it would need to be replaced. We replace it on everything here anyway, just part of our "doing a better repair job than everyone else" way of doing things around here. But it would be "okay" to reuse the compound that is there as long as it isn't hard like clay, as it will get after about 6 years.