John Tuttle has an excellent article on how to modify the rewind
speed of an Ampico A at the following site:

  http://www.player-care.com/reduce-rewind-speed.html 

I tried different thicknesses of punchings to reduce the travel of
the rewind bypass valve, and ended up reducing the valve travel to
about 0.030 inch.  At this setting, rewind speed will be fast enough
when the Tempo is set at normal speeds, but you can slide the Tempo
control to the left and slow the rewind down for those fragile rolls.

(Or, if you don't want to take the drawer out to get to the governor,
you can just remove the tube leading to the bypass pouch, and block
both the tube and the nipple on the governor.  But this will make the
rewind speed slower and totally dependent on the Tempo setting.)

But like everyone else has said, make sure the take-up spool brake
is disabled.

Bill Luecht