Hi Pete, I've read through the thread once to get an overall feel for what is going on. I'm going to have to get a schematic and read through it again to try to gain more familiarity with the amplifier.
You've been doing some great work and I will do my very best to help.
You've probably noticed that different people have a different approach to troubleshooting. I have seen that you've been a little affected by this.
It's probably best that you concentrate on what just one person is saying to you, unless someone says *STOP!!! YOU'LL KILL IT*.
For the moment that person can be me. If other people make suggestions then I'll keep them in mind. If they are requests for simple measurements, there's no problem in making them if they're easy to do. The problem comes in more where two people ask you to remove different components etc.
The first thing to do is to measure the resistance of the replaced resistors (in circuit) and compare these with those of the other channel even before you apply power. Any difference of 5% or more should be noted, and don't apply power if the difference is > 10%.
The next thing that you can do yourself is to have all the various resistor fuses in place and to measure voltages at like points in both channels relative to the ground point you've been using. Make these measurements first in the area of the components which were recently replaced. Make sure that you don't have components removed from one channel that are present in the other channel. What you're looking for is "significant differences".
It will be hard for you to know what is significant, in some places a fraction of a volt difference is huge, and in other places several volts difference can be acceptable. Start by looking for large differences, say of more than a volt. If you find any of these, note where they are, then after you have a few, turn the power off and measure the resistance across nearby components looking for any difference (5% or more).
This will give you a quick "reasonableness check" on the replaced components. and may also spot any differences that we need to check out.
Note that if either protection LED illuminates then there is not much point in doing any of the voltage tests. You did a great job of jumpering the transistor do defeat the protection circuit last time. If either protection LED is on, I would jumper the protection transistor in *both* channels before doing the comparative voltage checks. This will eliminate any differences caused by the difference between a turned on transistor and a jumpered transistor.
If I've given you too much to do, relax, I'll be back again as soon as I read the thread again (which may be tomorrow).