I feel ya... welcome to hobby.
We're dealing with really old devices that often have (ike this adapter) suffered damage, so it's not always going to go smoothly, and may not ever result in a fully functional device. Just about everyone in this hobby has several machines that just aren't fixable, even after hours and hours of troubleshooting and dollars and dollars of investment, myself included.
This adapter probably could still be repaired if you're up to the challenge (sounds like a bad transistor. Also, double check your capacitors to ensure their polarities are correct). But if you don't have the funds or wherewithal for that right now, I'd suggest making regular visits to local second-hand shops for power adapters (or electronics recycling centres, if they sell stuff in your area)... anything 7.5V and 2A or 3A, or one of the adjustable ones, will work. It might take a while for the right one to show up, but when it does it'll only cost a couple bucks. I live in a smaller, remote city in the nether-regions of Canada and I've been pleasantly surprised at some the stuff that I found at second-hand shops - especially odd-ball power adapters I've been looking for.