If anyone is still looking for a SLP-98

@decooney 

@harpo75 

@immatthewj 

OK, it's official. I'm an idiot. I had the umbilical on wrong. No idea how that's even possible but it was. All is well now, probably just took some hours off the PS caps making it too warm. Good grief. I'm a happy boy now. It even sounds good with croppy new tubes. 

Ahhhh yes.  The is a nub on the connector that fits into the notch on the chassis’s jacks.  Always have to make sure you get that in the groove. 
If it’s working you may have lucked out.  It was probably shorting the transformer and so got hot.  Lucky it didn’t fry it.  
About the only real failure I see on these is the bridge rectifier in the power supply.  Typically though the SLP-98’s just work for years.  

Nice easy find @billpete and this is good news, happy for you. Okay, let that baby bake in for a week with the supplied tubes and maybe turning it on/off a few times cycling the tubes hot cold a few times. Two of my own Cary amps and preamps had the Jensen Gold oilers and they are not too bad. I left mine in the 98 pre as-is, and chose not to use the same Mundorf EVO SGOs like I have in my amps though.  

It'll be interesting to get your thoughts after you and your ears settle in with it more.
Happy Listening for the weekend! :) 

@harpo75 

@harpo75 

Yup, I'm fully aware of the nub/keyway on umbilicals. When it dropped in to where I could tighten the nut, I assumed all was well but yet something didn't feel "quite right". I never thought it would go in far enough to tighten the nut if the nub wasn't lined up. My eyes in evening light, not so good. I am old and have AMD. These things always go by feel for me. Lesson learned. I do think I dodged a bullet in that it didn't fry itself. I am very pleasantly surprised in what I hear even from new stock tubes. Thanks very much for your help.

It’s OK billpete. It happens to the best of us. Even as a technician it happened a couple times to me. Among other things! I’m retired and a few years out from my tech days. First my back went, then my neck went-had a fusion, now my knee is gone. Sucks getting old! It’s a good thing your body doesn’t fall apart till your old, young people couldn’t handle this.

As a tech the worst thing that ever happened to me I think was being shocked by a CAD-805 amp that was wired wrong. An assembler wired the main B+ directly to a speaker post so that every time I grabbed hold of the chassis to turn it over and I grabbed the speaker post I got shocked by 1000 volts even with it off. It took a second time getting shocked, which turned my finger white and burnt a deep hole, to realize where I was being shocked from. Believe me 1000VDC will make your muscles spasm good. And that’s with the amp off and unplugged. Those caps hold a charge for a while.