I’ve always used the soft case on mine and the power connector is shrouded. This probably helps a lot. I’d read that the socket is pain to work on.
Have you had case screws vanish? When I stripped my 817 looking for the possible melted track there were a few case screws missing! I’m assuming they were not torqued correctly by me when I fitted a CW filter and have vibrated loose and been lost.
For those who don’t know, the torque setting for Japanese radio case screws is not to use a JIS screwdriver and to apply sufficient force that you either strip the thread have the driver cam-out and manchester the slots as shown below. 
