Yamaha used a bit different than usual snowblower start arrangment. 120 in to a bridge rectifier to a 12 volt starter. Big time smoked. The rectifier blew, arcing and charing at the brushes, commutator sections chared and melted, wnding section melted and a broken magnet. A total. Yamahas are hard to come by and the electric start models a bit rarer. The starter on these list from $750 to 850. It's $660 from boats which usually has good prices.
These are nice starters so I suspect the usual, no maintenance -> hard to start -> lots of starter cranking -> burnt starter.
