Siddley, have you had a look at just what horsepower these motors on a U3 are rated at ?
The U3 motor can get to be very sluggish, if somebody has decided to oil the sintered bronze bushes, with a 3 in 1 sewing machine oil – bad choice of lubrication that stuff.
This type of oil will dry out and clog up the sintered bronze bushes, then the bushes are acting like brake blocks, dragging and slowing everything down.
I bought a complete U 3 from the " evil-one " and the motor on it, was exactly as you have described, I carefully opened the motor and used a lot of paint thinners to dissolve this accumulated crud from the bushes.
Put it all back together and away it went, it will now hit the magic 4000 rpm again, it will NOT drill a 5mm hole thru 3mm ally in one go either, you have to sneek up on that size hole with the mighty midget.
Did a rather severe mod to another U3 motor and replaced the sintered bronze bushes with some BALL BEARINGS, wow, what an improvement, this ball bearing motor now has some balls about it .
This mod was printed in the Model Engineer many moons ago, think I even saw it on this site somewhere, it is/would be worth doing, if you want to keep the U3.
regards Graham