hi jdevlin. the load quits all together when it is overloaded.there is no internal breaker i can see.i pulled the plug out. this one was made around WWII.very old only a 3 h.p. motor pulling it. the big one is an 8 h.p. & it does have circuit breakers but they don't pop out. i thought i burnt out the stator in this one but only the connections too the 240 volt outlet went bad , because i used my ohm meter & a wiring diagram to trace the windings.also had to reconect the rotor windings to the comuntator because they some how came loose.think mayebe the wiring harness from the statoir caught them , so i tied them out of the way.as soon as i unplug it & plug a smaller load in it works fine.
