Yes, I’m the person that sold you the replacement hinge. :) $200 was a good deal for a fully working parts machine for sure. I’m very happy to see you have mostly gotten it back up and running! Crazy the display switch is causing you so much trouble! I’ve personally never had an issue with mine. I fully understand your frustration though, I’ve been there plenty of times myself. :)
The more you described who you bought the parts machine from, the more I was like "That's Adrian, isn't it?" Thought it was interesting that both your channels featured these within a few weeks of each other
something tells me the switch might have some gunky grease in it. hitting it with not even deoxit but alcohol and some silicone spray lube might be your best bet. it sounds to me like yes, it works if you use it enough but once it's been sitting for a bit it gets stuck until it gets jostled. as far as the cap thing goes... I've recapped a few PSUs and boards for 386s so far with Nichicon PS (for normal stuff) and VZ series (for the big values), meant for power supply use. they're not the absolute best and they're also technically discontinued now, but I'm going to use all of them I can until both mouser and digikey are out of them. Those in the PSU and on critical power infra, Würth for the "these just need a cap" sort of jobs (and work great on sound cards for the 100uF caps!) and then Nichi UKT for audio grade repairs, not even going UKA or whatever else is higher end, I've had nothing but good luck so far. My P70 also needs to be recapped for the PSU and screen side of things and I'm planning on using what I can out of the aformentioned series caps but I know with some of the plasma panels, they require very specific ratings for the axial caps, and I think the only couple companies left selling axial electrolytics are Illinois, Kemet and Cornell-Dubilier. I know one can get hybrid tantalum caps meant for automotive use in the correct size and ratings in axial from Panasonic but they're hellishly expensive and probably have the wrong ESR and leakage ratings compared to what the panels really need... and may do more bad than good.
First thing I checked, actually. The real problem was the switch was rubbing against the case - ever so slightly. This is actually a VERY common problem, and even happened on my "childhood" T3200SX in 1997. I fixed it by heating up the actuator rod and slightly bending it away and down from its original position.
the same for a Socket 462 board that i tried to recap i ended up killing it, i found out that i had my desoldering gun's temp quite a bit high, the ground planes were making cap removal more complicated but i did remove much of them
