Hi @Cedsrepairs! One thing you definitely need is a small second board which pulls the clock signal off one of the chips on the motherboard.
As for desoldering the chips on your board - If you haven't done it yet and you do go through with it, try to get some clear photos of the board so we can...
It definitely has a handful of electrolytics. They're all tiny (though not surface-mount) so I don't think I have replacements handy. Any reason not to use tantalums if I have them around?
I need to figure out something I can use to test caps without spending an arm and a leg...
I've got an AppleCD 300e Plus, and it works pretty well. I know you aren't really supposed to expect them to read CD-Rs, but this one does, albeit not very well.
Interestingly, it often reads them only when "cold" - if I have a CD-R that won't read, I'll switch off the power to the drive, wait...