1) No chime; and I've swapped in a few different internal speakers.
Yes, probably a couple of bad capacitors. I had a IIci with no sound and it fixed it when I replaced these. It's not too hard to fix.
2) The machine does not seem to want to recognize either a System 7.5.5 boot floppy or disk 1 of the 19 disk System 7.5.3 installation set; I've swapped in several different drives.
The particular disk you're using probably doesn't work or isn't the right one for a IIci. There are some disk images online you can download and try.
3) There's no ROM SIMM installed, and I don't have one lying around. Not sure how critical this is to the operation of the machine?
The IIci usually does not have a ROM SIMM. This slot is meant to override the built-in ROM if you want to do that for some reason.
4) The
sound chip area of the board is covered in some sort of goo...
Well then certainly the sound problem is because of bad capacitors. This is very common.
I have no hard drive with a IIci-bootable OS installed on it now. And apparently the 80MB drive that came in the IIci is dead because the IIci wouldn't boot from it and my LC III/Drive Setup wont recognize it.
It may work if you just format it and reinstall. If it doesn't spin, just take it out and twist it around in your hand vigorously to break it free. This happens sometimes when drives have sat for a VERY long time. If that's the case, it may boot up and everything once you get it spinning.
