I have a 1700b also. When working, they are very nice instruments. The only complaint would be the size. They eat up a lot of work bench space. But the are capable instruments and seem to work well.
I like that the calibration procedure can be done without any expensive , rare equipment. It pretty much uses itself to calibrate itself. A good voltmeter, frequency counter and oscilloscope is all that is needed.
But if it isn't working, they are a bear to work on. Depending on which options it has, it can be difficult to get to the bottom side of the boards. The manual suggests for most repairs you cut the leads of the bad component on the top side and tack the new part to the remnants of the leads. For some parts that is not possible. Getting the boards out so you can work on them can be done, but it requires patience. Take careful notes and pictures, because none of the manuals I have found online show the board interconnects very well.
Check that the oscillator works in the low distortion setting. When you switch it to this position, it should turn off the LED and settle in. If if clicks back and forth from fast response to low distortion, then you have some work to do. Hopefully just an alignment, but the circuit uses a light dependant resistor that can fail. It is obsolete, so finding a new part that works may require some circuit modifications and re-tuning. There is info on the web on how to do it though.
Terry