I like that.
It reminds me of (a long, long time ago - honest) trying to fix the timebase in an ancient solartron scope, having no circuit and no clue. I poked the (tiny, Taiwanese, analogue, found in a bin) multimeter probes around (carefully; I'm still here) and suddenly the timebase sprang into life. So...I borrowed another multimeter, measured the resistance across the probes on the range I had been using, and soldered a resistor in across those two points. Hey presto
I wonder if someone might explain why the attempt to replace the original rectifier was unsuccessful? I don't yet understand.