Alright, so far, everything seems to work. I have the cog-style tanks that mount onto the lift, I can move chemistry in and out of the drum using the lift's simple chemistry draining mechanism, the heater seems to work, water circulates into the drum area (and fills up to around the level of the retaining rollers), and when it tries to cool it makes a churning noise. Unfortunately after running it for about 15 minutes this way I finally learned that the cooling device isn't an element or something, but rather a pump that pulls cold water in through a cold water intake on the back (which I had just assumed was a simple way to hook it into your water supply for filling the tempering bath). I hope I didn't ruin the cold water pump by doing this. Otherwise everything is operational as far as I can tell.
This is very exciting. I'll have to mailorder some chemistry and try some home E6. Any suggestions?