Anyone have some solid guidance as to how to move forward with this? My neighbor has volunteered to help me a bit, he knows networking in electronics but not so much amplifiers.
The thermal paste should be about the same stuff you use to stick a heatsink on a CPU. As you say that burnt clip looks a bit ominous. If this amp doesn't power up I think it's going to be beyond the scope of anybody on this forum to help you get it up and running (normally more stuff than is visibly damaged will have failed).
If you're looking to get these restored by a professional, hit up Stephen Mantz (Zed Audio Corp). He has been designing and repairing amps since the 70s and offers restoration services. Keep in mind on a 20+ year old amp all the electrolytic capacitors are prone to failure and should be replaced regardless of anything else broken.
OK, so if you try to power them up use a very small fuse (3A or 5A) on the power cable, then at least if they break right out the gate you won't have enough current available to do any damage to the boards or anything.I haven’t even powered them on yet.
If you're technically inclined you can use a small light bulb in series with either the power or ground to charge the caps to reduce the inrush current, then use the fuse (I'd even say a 1-2a fuse would be fine once the caps are charged) to make sure you're not killing your power supply or seriously f'ing up the amp lolOK, so if you try to power them up use a very small fuse (3A or 5A) on the power cable, then at least if they break right out the gate you won't have enough current available to do any damage to the boards or anything.