[Premium-Rx] Collins 651S-1 advice sought

[Nick England]

In a fit of Xenia/Dayton sunstroke madness, I bought a 651S-1 receiver
(Collins p/n 522-4836-152). Having heard about this receiver for years, I
figured it would be interesting to have one and the price wasn't too
outlandish.
http://www.virhistory.com/ham/dayton-19/IMG_2584.JPG

The seller said it worked and it does, mostly.
Major issue so far - The 10's of MHz is stuck at 0 so it is fine up to 9.9999
MHz. Both display and synth are stuck so the problem must be in the upper
2-bit counter circuit on the A14 board and I can probably figure that
out with some scoping. I don't have an extender card, so I'll have to
remove card, tack on a few wires, reinsert card, scope a bit, repeat as
necessary.
So - the questions -
1) What is the trick to pulling these cards out? I finally used a vise-grip at
the corners of the A14 Freq Ctl Ckt Board, but I don't want to keep doing
that and munge up the card.
2) What to my wondering eyes should appear but early flat-pack TTL and
DTL logic.
Is there any source for this stuff nowadays?
3) Is there any reason to keep the DCU and DCFE boards? I'm not going to ever
try remote control and IF I get lucky, I might be able to rob a chip I need
off them.
Can I just pull these cards out or are there jumpers I need to fix? This is a
-152 version receiver which the manuals say comes without DCU/DCFE
4) Does anyone have a junker A14 board? Want to trade for DCU/DCFE?
5) Does anyone have a spare cabinet? This is rack-mount unit with speaker, but
no cabinet.
6) The meter is working but not lit - I assume there is a lamp inside there
somewhere.
7) The USB signal is weak but working - so that's another board to scope
out.

All in all, it was a reasonable gamble and I think I'll have a good experience
using it. The audio muting when changing frequency is odd, but I recall
seeing a hint about defeating that. The fluorescent displays all work, but
are dim. I may do the LED conversion some day but that's a future project.

Cheers
Nick
-- 
Nick England K4NYW
www.navy-radio.com