I had two of these AHC running in our shop for several years. ...
They are limited in the way they work though.
The spindle drive was a high/low electric clutch range selectable by trip cam and also a high/low speed in each range by hydraulic vari drive pulley selectable by trip cam. You could have 4 spindle speeds available per part but only 1 speed per station.
They are production machines, not meant for single piece jobs, and I don't see how you could use one for single piece since there were no graduated dials on the machine.
Great post, Rock.
I was part of a project in the early 90s that retrofitted 2 AHCs with Fagor 8024 CNC controls, somewhat similar to to the Accu-slide retrofits. The AHCs were very popular for CNC retrofits then, because they're the most rugged of the Hardinges and the most available since they were becoming obsolete.
I think if you were to convert them to manual use, you'd have a lot of work ahead of you. As Rock said, everything is controlled hydraulically/pneumatically/electrically-no manual mechanical controls. The turret is rotated, locked and held in place hydraulically (no racks), and there's a pneumatic only collet closer.
On the plus side, the dovetail bed is the same size as the later model chuckers, so I suppose if you got a turret and rack from one of those, you'd be a third of the way there. Or maybe the turret could be controlled using the present hydraulics with manually operated switches. Downsides would be no feel for tool load and working with the damn hydraulic pump whining fulltime. Other issues would be spindle speed, on-off and direction control, and collet closer control, which could be done using the present relays and some added pushbutton switches.
Seems doable, but I think that if you want a chucker and count your time as worth something, buying a used chucker would be a better option.
But, if you still want to do it, have I got a deal for you! One of the later model AHCs, with variable grip collet closer, complete, with the leftover pieces from the two retrofitted machines: turrets, dovetail beds, hydraulics, spindle speed change motors and related gear, spindle motors, and 3 complete control cabinets (containing 3 lifetime's supply of relays :-) ). They're in my buddy's widow's barn in central Vermont and I'd have to check, but I'm pretty sure she'd be happy to see it all go to a good home at scrap prices. She also has a factory manual and video.
If you're still interested (after my most excellent sales job :-) ) lemme know.
Neil