Thanks again for your effort CmdrDuh, but that model I had ended up finding on the 3D Model Warehouse for Google Sketchup ended up being the biggest time saver.
GregB generously converted the .SKP file to a DWG and DXF for me.
I've attached the file, in the case that anyone searches and finds this, by some odd chance.
It created a file with all the triangles as 3DFaces and all on layer 0, with the color set per object, not bylayer. It retained the colors from the .SKP file. Faces are block'd per object in the assembly, roughly, with some combined into one large block. Ended up being 3 blocks total, for the whole crane. I cleaned it up a bit, created 4 basic layers, for no purpose other than because I prefer attaching materials ByLayer in Autocad, except special cases, and this isn't anything going for photorealism.
No materials included, just the model... hadn't gotten that far yet... waiting for the go ahead from the client to 'ok' my ideas before I charge more time to the job... but the boss is optimistic that it's just what they were looking for.
*edit* deleted attachment, see update in post below */edit*