Thanks for all the other help. Here's the issue: When first powered up, Claw goes left until it hits wall, issue shows up in test, easily remedied in claw test, then works fine for rest of powered up usage. I've read everything I can on this, removed opto board, tested resistors and diodes, re-flowed solder, did same on motor control board. checked where connectors go to on CPU, noticed thy were plugged into J208 and 206, instead of J209 and 207, switched them, made no difference.
Everyone says look to optos for problem, but my question is; if it works fine after power up resetting done, then optos are working fine, no? something is shooting power to the claw motor on boot before the testing is done, or started for the matter.. this one baffles me.

I will try that. somewhere in this forum someone had a link to them. Marco something. I was over at Steve Youngs the other day, but he doesnt have them.

I just looked at marco specialties, they had the optos, and the whole board assembly. I opted for the whole board. leaves out any variables of incorrect opto. hopefully this solves the startup issue.

OK, so the opto board showed up, and I installed it. initial startup did the same thing, claw off to left into the wall, settings, reset it, played a game or 2, then i shut the game off, gave it a few and restarted it, worked fine! no out of range issue, I restarted it a few more times during the evening, and all was well. BUT, this morning, i tried it again before heading to work. ISSUE IS BACK! So it seems on hot restarts its ok, but a cold start makes claw move instantly out of range, I mean, soon as the switch is turned on...
This has me real baffled. Motor control board? could it be a bad cap or transistor somewhere? I'm not sure where to go next with this.. throwing random parts doesnt seem to be the answer..