Denial

If you piggyback memory chips onto the 2116s inside the VIC, that's not a good idea because they are not on the proper side of the 74ls245 bus controlling buffers. You can easily get a 16k expansion for less than 5$... I have a couple of commodore originals lying around here if you want. In these yo...

WD40 applied with a q-Tip has always been fine here.

Otherwise, every few years, a good head realignement with my TDS1002 and speed check...

For very early VICs the power supply was actually in a metal case. I have one here. Surprisingly, the VIC itself says 9V AC on its 2 pin connector while the power supply says 11V 38VA. I suppose any good Hammond 9VAC transformer with at least 30VA will do just fine. If you use something below 9VAC, ...

apart from the look you didn't change much but hey... its funny!

'-)

I got a large collection of 16k games from cartridges including Battlezone... they all work just fine both on a real VIC and in VICE...

Perhaps I could give you some technical advice...