Sounds like the slow speed winding on your motor may be bad.

I found a diagnostic aid on checking the motor continuity. unplugged with the harness removed from the motor - the low voltage side reads something like .4 ohm on a 10x scale - so around .04 ohms. the high speed reads slightly less at about .3 on the 10x scale (so .03). It's a cheap analog meter so I don't know if the values mean anything or not. The meter is not showing open - but it's not totally shorted out either.

Also, I plugged the unit in with the cabinet off (and the lid switch disconnected) there is no voltage reading from orange to white /w black stripe, nor from violet to white with black stripe.

so am I back to the timer?

update: took off the cabinet, cleaned everything, put it back together - works fine, yea! Of course I still have no clue what the initial trouble was - there is slight discoloration on the wiring harness connector to the motor near the orange wire - it may be that all it needed was to clean those contacts by working the connecter a couple of times, idunno.