How wonderful you got your problem fixed. I dropped the foot pedal of my vintage machine recently and really broke it! It had some sort of fancy bakelite or early plastic channel thing completely broken in half with springs now askew and an obvious electrical short.
It was a much more complicated device than I would have thought. Never thought much about foot pedals but not a simple lever, you have to have the push back component to it.
On Monday I'll try contacting the shop I go to for my vintage stuff, I understand they are open by appointment/will meet in the back parking lot with masks over our faces like we are doing something much more suspicious than fixing an old machine