Welcome to the greatest thing you are going to see for a long time. This restoration is on a Barco BR-5 Rammer made by the Barco Mfg. Co.. This marvel of insane engineering is technically a 2-stroke motor with no rotation and two pistons. You read that right. The top piston sucks in air and fuel through the carburetor on the upstroke and that mixture ignites when the piston nears the top and trips the magneto, creating a spark at the spark plug. Springs pull the top piston up and you push the top piston back down. The explosion in the cylinder now pushes the lower piston out from the bottom of the machine. The lower piston just so happens to have large magnesium foot (why magnesium? I have no idea) attached to it, so the whole machine jumps in the air with each explosion. When gravity eventually takes over, the 200lb machine slams into the ground, completing its job an a tamper. Its job might be over, but the horror has just begun as the momentum of the top top piston slamming back down to the ground eventually leads the springs to pull it back up, beginning the cycle all over again. This means that the tool can actually keep running without human input, slowly stomping down the street, crushing everything in its path, and the only way to stop it is to grab the handle while in motion and hold it up so the top piston can no longer trip the magneto. That is the only off switch.

Other than the horror, it's insanely fun to use and is great at children's birthday parties and cideries.

The most challenging part was machining new valves to some unknown specification.

The amount of broken, seized, and missing parts made this one of the most difficult restorations so far, with the lack of a manual also contributing to that. If you ever see a manual for this tool, please contact me at [email protected]

I've complied an album of images and documentation found on this tool: https://imgur.com/a/M2BAKmh

You can see the patent for this tool here: https://patents.google.com/patent/US2...


Wrenches, screwdrivers, and socket drivers are now for sale at www.handtoolrescue.com

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