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Don't fret
In the 50's ASNSW had a 16" f/7 newtonian on a massive permanent mount at Belfield in southwest Sydney. There was a twin mirror made at the same time as the ASNSW one though I don't know where that went. During the construction of the observatory at Mt Bowen in the early '80's we discovered the remains of the former scope lying in a paddock, and retrieved what we could. The only useful bits were the mirror (thin plate) and the mirror cell which was galvanised steel, and nicely made. The rest was useless.
Looking over the remains, the main reason the mounts of that era were so huge was the components were quite crude - a 24" diameter worm wheel machined in bronze with maybe 3-5 teeth per inch, an equally massive steel (and badly corroded) worm, mounting components that were cut from plate and welded together. It was best described as "agricultural" - about the level of what a farmer could knock together in a shed with a lathe and a welder. It might have been able to track adequately for visual use - but not reliably nor accurately.
Also, don't forget - there was no computer-controlled milling in those days and accurately machining small one-off parts was a nightmare.
So quite frankly don't fret - even if that old scope was still lying around somewhere the only part that could conceivably be useful these days would be the mirror.
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