Electric mower troubleshooting

Hi Folks,

I have been taking a look at my sisters mower, it's an oldie - Make is  an Orion Sigma 32E, it's about 15 years old, but hardly used, been in the shed for years without use and I gave it to her a while back when she moved house.

It stopped working and upon dismantling it, i first noted a cylindrical part with the top off and a loose wire (pictured) which I did a rough hack/fix on it and got it going again, and then fixed in place to stop it becoming loose again.

I also replaced some of the wire that looked worse for wear, and gave the rest a bit of a clean up and removed any visible oxydisation etc that was obvious. It seems to run reasonably well, but initially the motor groans/complains for a few seconds, then the blade starts spinning and it's off  . . . . . and cuts just fine.

So seeing as this part was found to be broke, what is it and can I replace it

As far as I can find out, it may or may not be called a ' rectifier ' so my question would be, is there likely to be a generic one I could buy to replace this one that's on it, my initial thought was to look for carbon brushes that might be worn but I couldn't see any on this motor ?

Or any other suggestions on what might make it a bit sluggish to start?

Thank you . Dave

I had a feeling it might be a capacitor, you're a star, I'll check maplins, got one fairly close, thanks