When I began to clean up a new-to-me old Nichols hand miller, I took one look at the motor wiring and immediately took the stator section to a local motor repair place for new lead wires. Excess wire length that should have been folded up in an external connection box ("peckerhead") was crammed into the free air space, insulation was cracking off all over the place, and any attempt on my part to straighten things out was guaranteed to produce a massive short. The repair place did a great job in attaching new lead wires and went the extra mile to revarnish the windings and a few other things as well.
Well worth it to repair rather than replace!
