Hi Andrew,
>
> Thanks for the reply. What I should have said is that there are 2 wires
> from the motor which should connect to the capacitor and 1 wire from
> elsewhere within the machine. there are of course more than 2 wires going to
> the motor itself.
Well, this is still far too little info to be sure, but I suspect you will need to connect the capacitor between the two motor wires, and the supply wire to one side of the capacitor. If you connect the supply to the wrong capacitor terminal, the motor will turn in the wrong direction.