Avon 3000 Mill retrofit

Hi All, I want to tackle a project that I started about 6 years ago and never got round to. 
Mi Avon Mill with Anilam GXM contro        l served me well until one day it did'nt. First the one servo driver failed. The machine uses Baldor (i think) DC servo motors with tacho and encoder feedback. I replaced the drive and the machine was running OK. At some point I re-soldered some of the Anilam control cards, as the machine was acting unpredictably and I suspected dry joints. I decided it was no longer useable when the Z-axis had a runaway and crashed a tool into my manual tool setter. (coming to think of it, this could also have been an encoder problem)
I bought a Mesa 5i25 Superport and a Mesa 7i77D card for it, but that is where I got stuck. 
I now started up an old Dell Core 2 Duo machine with 4GB ram and a 240GB SSD for the retrofit, and installed LinuxCNC 2.9.4
My plan is to first get the Dell and Mesa cards running on the bench, Maybe toggle a output and read a handwheel or switch. Then do the transplant and get things working from there. If possible, I want to use the existing electrics cabinet and just connect to the two ribbon cables connecting the Anilam with the electrical cabinet. I will start with the existing drives, and upgrade to AC drives and motors when budget allows.
Comments and suggestions welcome

This is the original sales brochure for the machine.
 
 
 
 
 
 

I also have the wiring diagram and pinouts for the two ribbon cable connectors from the control to the electrical cabinet.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Plain sailing this is not! I have been battling for days now to get LinuxCNC up and running. Resorting to building from source now. Hope to have it up and running by tomorrow morning.....ok, later this morning.