Is this French motor reversible?

According to Ignoramus15002 :

O.K. So it is "cap start - cap run".

O.K.

What is the lowest range of your ohmmeter? For a 1HP 115V AC motor, I would expect windings to measure on the order of 0.2 Ohms or so -- enough to be swamped by the test lead resistance if you don't take it into account. The right way to do it would be with some of the more elaborate pieces of test equipment which have probably come through your hands -- and which you have probably already passed on to some other purchaser.

Look for one capable of four-wire resistance measurement. One example (one which I have) is the HP 3455A with four measurement terminals on the front panel (plus a guard terminal for shielding in the case of high impedance measurements). The four-wire ohmmeter works by putting current through the resistance under test with one pair of wires, and measures the voltage that current produces with a second set of wires, so you don't have to worry about the voltage loss in the measurement wires. Not much use for high resistance measurements, but very nice for very low resistance measurements.

I think that these are the run and start windings with a single common lead where they are joined deep inside the motor housing. You'll need a meter capable of measuring tenths or hundredths of ohms to get a realistic set of readings, so you can tell for sure which is the common. In electronics wiring in the US, I would expect the black to be common, but in *electrical* wiring in the US, I would expect it to be the hot side of the run winding. With French color codes, I have no idea what to expect. Perhaps the green is the common there. :-) I

As above, I think that those are the wires which connect to the motors windings, with a common where the ends of two are joined inside the motor. This suggests that they did not *intend* for the motor to be reversed -- perhaps because the design of the gear train works better in one direction.

You might open up the motor and see whether the junction can be split so you can interchange the ends of a winding -- but I suspect that the junction is wrapped up inside the wires of the windings, making it quite difficult to get to.

Good luck, DoN.

DoN, I spent a while longer looking at this motor yesterday. The blue wire from one of the poles goes directly into the motor case. The reason why the black wire goes into the motor and comes back as green and red, is that it probably goes to a thermal breaker. I do not think that this motor is easily reversible.