Starter magnets loose

 I'm guessing you have nothing to lose, so if you rotate the barrel (effectively the brushes) 180 degrees,  it may start turning in the right direction? 

 It is worth a shot.. If it doesn't work, you have nothing to lose.

I flipped the top and wiring and rotated it in 10 degree increments until I'd made a 360. No change in direction. A tech said the armature is would for 2 magnets and now there are three poles. Meh, oh well. 

I tried to see about my spare starter on my VN750 and they couldn't be more different if they came from a different manufacturer 

A gently broken magnet, held together back in its original orientation will act just as it originally did.

Every magnet wants to fly apart into a million pieces. They are held together by the mechanical properties of the material. When a magnet breaks and separates, new poles become apparent where there may not have been any previously, or where the poles may have been different. Depending on how a magnet is broken, it may want to separate. There may be certain breaks that allow the magnet to come back together naturally, but that would have to be planned ahead. Randomly breaking usually results in a weak or strong repulsion of the pieces. But once you mechanically force the magnet back together the way it was, those new poles will be forced back to where they originally were.

This is for when a magnet is merely broken. Now there is the possibility of rearranging the poles of a magnet through high impact. But that can happen even without breaking the magnet (if it's a strong enough material), and is not terribly common on commercially manufactured magnets. You see it more often on things like a screwdriver that has become magnetized inadvertently etc.

Another possibility is if the magnet is affected by a very strong external magnetic force, like another magnet or coil. That can sometimes reverse a magnet.

It looks like it has four brushes. Is there a chance one or more brushes aren't making contact or a wire has broken? Changing the number of functioning brushes might cause a direction reversal.

So, i fixed it by taking the magnets out of the can and turning them upside down. I had tried at the brush level earlier today and it didn't help. Good now!