This thread has morphed from 'panel life' to 'equipment life' it seems, but it's all good stuff.
I too am a proponent of keeping old amps alive and well, even if they aren't the expensive 'high-end' models.
I'm sharing my recapping story below so that others will know that even someone with no electronics experience can recap an amp, if you're careful, without breaking the bank. Below is a link to my recapping thread, with photos, on the CarverSite:
https://thecarversite.com/topic/1116-recapping-a-tfm-25-for-dummies/#comment-7094
When building my system in 2008, I purchased three used Carver TFM-25's on Ebay for around $900 (total), and refurbished them. As I recall, I spent about $120 per amp on parts.
Even though I had no electronics experience and no clue how to refurbish an amp, I could solder pretty well, and I found service manuals and inspiration on the CarverSite Forum, and dived in. Fortunately all three amps were still in working order so all I needed to do was replace the components most prone to fail with age.
In each amp I replaced all 39 electrolytic caps, checked resistors, and replaced any that looked even a little toasty (even if they measured good).
A typical refurb would not involve raplacing any transitors, but in my case there was a TMF-25-2 Service Bulletin reliability upgrade, which I did concurrently, and it consisted of replacing (4) pre-driver transistors, replacing several resistors with 'flame proof' versions, and lofting all of the replaced components 3/8" above the board to prevent heat-damage to the board.
Before starting, I drained power from all the caps using a 100 watt light bulb. The big power caps lit the bulb brightly for a few seconds before dimming down as their charge drained.
Before removing any caps I marked the tops of every cap (with a Magic marker) so that I would not get confused about which caps I had already replaced and those I had not yet replaced.
Throughout the refurb I had the amp connected to speakers, and I would replace four or five components, and then do a sound check with music. That way; if something went wrong I wouldn't have far to backtrack to find the problem.
After each sound check, I drained power from all the caps again before continuing.
The last step was setting the idle currents to bias the transistors on each channel. There was an easy procedure for this in the Service Manual, which involved conncting DVM leads to check points on the board, turning the amp on and letting it warm up for five minutes, then using a tiny screw driver to adjust bias pots unitl the DVM reads 1.0 mOhms.
That's all there was to refurbishing a Carver TFM-25.
I found the experience really empowering. All three amps played wonderfully, and are still playing wonderfully to this day.
To my ears; the amps sounded OK before the recap but definitely more dynamic and alive after the recap.
Hey, go for it!