This weekend, I pulled the chassis from the Zenith to give it a good cleaning. My earlier assumption that it was a smoker's set was wrong. There was little trace of nicotine.
The gunk on the wires and in the bottom of the cabinet seemed to emit from the plastic wire insulation. But the plastic u-channel ring around the safety glass seemed to be the worst offender.
I washed all the plastic with alcohol to get rid of the sticky, oily gunk. The wires are still very slightly tacky but at least it is clean.
The top of the metal cabinet has some rust where I believe the previous owner kept potted plants. I was thinking of clearing off the surface to bare metal and then reapplying a wood grain. There are many practical demonstrations on You Tube and I thought I may give this a try.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_fRpJUyBDg
Here are some more photos.