[tym]

Thanks, Gary and David! Makes sense - and hard to believe it will be any worse than the zero-turn coil it had previously...LOL

I used a wine bottle cork from the top to pop the primary coil assembly back into the slots of the secondary's coil former. I then used some drops of molten wax to "glue" the tabs into the slots like original.

All windings still have continuity, so at least I didn't break anything. I won't have time to reinstall the transformer until the weekend. Fingers crossed!