OMG... UPDATE: I just kept fiddling with this and found the problem!! Dumb luck. After much inspection with a magnifier and after rewiring the black lead to be fused and switched (instead of the white wire as manufactured) I plugged it back in to check it one more time and since the board was still exposed I wiggled the calibration pot and the up/down temp set buttons and noticed the display jumping between really low numbers like 026 and 680 or higher. Hmmmmm... I settled on the Down Arrow button as the culprit. broke it open, cleaned with an eraser, melted it back together with small soldering tip and added some fresh solder to the 4 leads.. IT WORKS!!!!!!!!!! Maybe the "pop-disc" was in crooked or a bad solder joint?
Now I will get out the k-sensor for my multimeter and recalibrate this thing. YES!!!!!!