I retrofit it, and I rebuilt it, and I repaired it many times. It still functions, but its in desperate need of repairs again. Both the X & Y have excessive backlash. The Y is just old and worn out, but the X probably needs a whole new ball screw assembly. In the middle of a job it went from about .001 backlash to about .035 backlash. I'm sure could sell the servo motors and the quill easily enough. The rest, who knows.
I had been still using it for roughing blanks for use on the smaller machines. Basically entering code one line at a time to do functional manual milling using conventional only to take up backlash and measuring the parts. Its usable that way. I'd been using it that way for quite a while. Here is the thing though. I can slightly more easily do that dame job on the new (last year) South Bend knee mill and it will make cuts the Hurco will balk at, choke, ship weld, and break an end mill trying. The South Bend has a modern 3 phase 5hp motor being powered with a 7.5HP VFD proper power and current program for the motor. It gives me pretty darn close to a real usable 5HP based on some of the crazy cuts I've made with it. Trust me when I say I do more work with the manual knee mill than with the CNC knee mill now... because its just faster.
Basically every time I fix its more than a minor little thing, and it works great for a couple months until something else craps out, and I just don't use it. I've got two smallish lathes I could put there and get more use of the space and take up less space. I do use the lathes, although the smaller one may also be on its way out if I don't decide to CNC it. On top of that I am working on a bridge mill that will do more of the type of work I do on a daily basis, and at the moment I do not have a place to put it. Of course power in my shop is an issue as well. When I built the shop it was just supposed to be a warehouse. I figured the 100 amp sub panel I put on it was way overkill. Well, not I am constantly bearing that electrical capacity budget in my head while running machines. What the peak "could" be and what the real load "probably" is. If I eliminate the Hurco I can use its budget allocation for the new bridge mill I am building.
I don't know. Just thinking. Just another one of the thoughts that probably kept me out of the good schools.