Mikado,
I looked up the specs of the DPx17, a common needle for Walking Foot machines, and the shank is 2mm which would have to be ground down to fit though the length is about right. Please send in some pics when she's all cleaned up and Good Luck.
Steve,
I found a manual for a modern Glover's machine, Kansai SPX-101, not sure how helpful it is: Looks like a great though difficult project.
http://www.supsew.com/KnowledgeBaseA...ai%20SPX_E.pdf
Jon