Thanks! Problem solved!
While the contacts do look bent compared to the others, they appear to be intentionally so and did not impede the rotating blades from making momentary contact.
Turns out the issue seems to be related to the contacts in the contact block or a jumper wire rubbing against the movable portion of the coil. I dissassembled and cleaned out some foreign debris (minimal) , cleaned the contacts and reassemble. Also noticed one of the jumper wires was just touching the ‘plunger” that pushes the contacts up. Not sure if the friction was too much for the coil to overcome, the contacts were dirty or stuck from debris, but after re assembly everything worked without any issues and ran like a champ!