First turn off all power to the equipment, then lock out the disconnect switch and tag it. Measure all power leads inside the unit for any voltage to ground. If no voltage is being read, Then place your meter on a low ohms scale. Determine if motor is single phase, or three phase. Then disconnect motor leads from motor and proceed to ohm out each terminal from common to start and common to run, for a single phase motor. Then place one meter lead connected to start terminal, the other meter lead connected to run terminal, to get total winding resistance thru both windings. The total winding resistance should add up to both the run & start winding resistance readings added together.

  Then check each motor terminal attaching to one meter lead and the other meter lead touches the ground on the motor, or bare metal frame. Depending on the ohmmeter used, you should read infinity on an analog meter, or OL on a digital meter. Any ohms reading lower than 500,000 ohms should be considered suspect. If the motor windings have any moisture in them, they can show lower resistance values. Sometimes warming up the motor can reduce the moisture content and raises the ohms value reading to an acceptable level.