The carriage handle gear has taken a bit of a pounding (water/coolant ingress into the apron?) but it's relatively unimportant to the finish you'll get, so don't worry too much. It the gear that that gear drives (IYSWIM), the carriage drive gear, that suffers bearing failure in the Hardinge.

It might be an idea to crack open the apron just to check there's nothing untoward inside. It's not difficult to strip down.

I don.t know if this is the same in the HLV. Anyway, any idea where I can get spares for these things,
Mine's imperial only it doesn't that the dual scales. You might try ringing ZMT (don't bother emailing they "don't have email in the workshop") but HLV-EMs are like hen's teeth, so you may have to make do and mend. I.e. make a new pin and fit a bronze sleeve into the idler gear.