The strange thing, Mark, is that it now permanently runs in reverse. If you switch it off and start again it runs backwards. I totally get where you're coming from about forcing a start in a certain direction, but AFAIK a shaded pole start can't be reversed without physically rotating the armature 180 degrees.
I've worked with larger capacitor start machines int he past and built in reversing on oil pumps by using a DPDT relay to swap the capacitor connections, but nothing changed on this at all. It just jammed and started going the other way.
Very odd.