I have cleaned perhaps a dozen or so commutators - none of them washing machine motors but no matter...
Have the motor on a bench and remove the brushes.
Best to dismantle the motor bearing plate at the commutator end to expose the parts but this is not always possible.
Cut a strip of fine abrasive paper and feed it down the brush hole and either around the commutator and back out the way it came in or back out through the other brush channel.
Apply some tension to the abrasive paper and rotate the motor by hand - until the commutator sparkles - use a sharpened stick to clean the commutator gaps.
Reassemble and test...
Good Luck..., February 2017
