Chevo,
I felt the motor was a good price so I jumped on it..
I tried draining the drive unit oil but the allen screw is rusted in to the point of stripping.. I think I am going to have to try an easy-out...

I also ordered a service manual for the machine...
-j

RC3000 Drive Motors are about $1276 (new) and $950 (certified crown renew) direct from crown with warranty. If you are actually getting a new Crown motor for that price, you are getting a pretty good deal!

As far as your drive unit checks.
-Draining and inspecting the gear oil will tell you a lot.
-Drive unit noise (Grinding/popping sound)
-Slop in the final

Its just a gear reducer (a box with gears, shafts, seals, gaskets and bearings)

Thank you for your responses.. I was able to get to the brushes free, 3 of the four..

Then today I had had to roll over a small concrete lip 1" high (empty forks) and i thought going slow would help.. After about 5-10 seconds of trying i backed up and it sounded like i was playing with a bag of rocks... I immediately parked the forklift, lifted the front end by using blocks under the mast. turned the steering wheel so only one drive motor would work. I let the motor run for about 30-45 seconds so i could get a read with my stethoscope, in hopes to isolate where the sound was coming from. I had to stop because the motor started to smoke like crazy...

I am confident that i burned up my motor enough that I bought a brand new one , crown brand , from ebay for $825 delivered. arrives this coming week..... not bad considering today's insult.
But could the drive unit be toast as well? How could I test this? I have removed the drive motor... Are there instructions or drawings etc available?
thank
-jason

Bottom drive motor brushes on RC's are very dangerous if you do not know proper blocking procedures. If you are not trained on blocking procedure I suggest pulling the motor and rolling it to get to bottom brush. This does add a lot of labor/time but... A lift truck falling on a human body is almost always deadly.

You can move the battery to get the one on the back side there is a slot and the bottom is you just have to feel by hand.