An examination of the innards of the MFJ-208 antenna analyzer didn’t reveal any obvious problems other than the messed up variable plate capacitor.
Everything else inside looks pretty clean.
With a pair of needle nose pliers and some very gentle pressure, I was able to bend the plates of the variable capacitor back to where I thought they should be. Both plates are parallel to each other now and don’t hit each other when rotated.
Now I just need to put everything back together, add power and test it out.