Well, I replaced the brushes and reassembled it tonight. Everything WAS going great UNTIL I made a critical mistake in testing it... I used jumper cables attached to a 12v motorcycle battery. A quick touch of power proved it was working nicely.
But then I got really dumb... I engaged the gear and ran it for 4 seconds - this seem to get the rpms really high right up until one of the armature wires caught the edge of a magnet bringing it to an abrupt stop. Dang it!
If I trimmed back the broken wire I think I could get it working again - anyone ever done that?
Live and learn - I seem to prefer the hard way of learning.
