Whack a Mower Deck.

Somehow I managed to strike the concrete sidewalk with my 48" John Deere mower deck on my 5100X series tractor and bent the deck. This is heavy gauge steel, (not the lightweight decks like the ones at Home Depot). How am I going to fix this? A new deck is quite expensive.

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I don't have anything in my garage capable of bending that back, and a sledge hammer is not going to work on it, either. So I simply walked away from it for a few days and let it jell in the back of my brain for a solution. Then today the light bulb came on and I figured it out! I have a 6 ton bottle jack on my motorcycle lift. What if I take that bottle jack off the lift, and PUSH that deck back into place? So that's what I did. The deck fought back, and would spring back and tax the bottle jack, but I went slow and steady and it worked like a charm. I was able to fully press it back to where it should be and didn't have to buy any tools to do it.

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I have found that letting tough problems just work around in your head for a day or two gives you better solutions than just attacking an issue right away.