how convert this bad-boy
 

Yo.

I've recently got this (pictured) milling machine going, it's a Bridgeport industrial mill... very big and powerful... used to make
these: http://www.hardwarereviewed.com/vdhtt/

anyway, I wanted to possibly covert this thing to CNC... It already has a Servo-powered X asis (you push a lever in one direction or another)... doing the Z axis is gonna be hard though.. it sticks out diagonally below the Y axis handle...

Anyway, what equipment would I need for it? (how big of motors, etC)

We just went through this recently with our master CNC'er!

click me!

Your first objective will be to come up with a mounting bracket, and I mean one that is secured nicely. It's hard to tell from your pic what challenge you're facing.

Off-hand, you might have to consider extending one of the handles to this new mounting bracket.

I read that, all I want to know is how powerful of motors I should get. It has places I can bolt to for the motor (exept on the Z axis, but I think I can rig something up for that)

you think some 1000 Oz motors? it's pretty hard to turn...

oh, another thing (which may make it so I can't do it at all) it has about 3/4 of a turn worth of slop in the gib... is there a parameter to set to compensate for this?

Nick there are countless NC conversions for bridgeport mills on the market. I dont know about true CNC but you can do NC (Numericll controlled) anyways. I would do a search for bridgeport conversions.

bridgeports are good machines to convert atleast that what i hear.
if the axis' are that hard to turn, it probably wouldnt hurt to take it apart(provided you can put it back together the same way it came apart) and give it a thorough cleaning while inpecting the parts' condition then give it a good greasing and all should be ok.
as far as converting it goes, anythings possible if you think about it hard enough:D

reminds me of the motto we have at work (Car audio install shop) "Given enough time and money, Anything is possible"