Straigntning a Lawnmower Deck

[garboui]

A couple weeks ago I was mowing the lawn after cutting down a tree. Unfortunately was lazy and didn't rake before mowing. The outcome to this was running over about a 2" cube of apple wood with the mower. It abruptly jumped in the air and stopped. After some inspection it seems that the crankshaft may have survived (haven't started sans blade yet) though both ends of the blade now touch the front of the deck.

I haven't been able to think of any clever ways yet to straighten the deck aside from the BFH approach or just shimming the motor. Does anyone have experience with this sort of thing or suggestions to do the repair a little more elegantly. (unfortunately no access to a press also.)

[srmofo]

is the blade bent and the front of the deck is just the low spot?

[JWC07]

Put a blade on it and turn it around by hand and figure out whats hitting. (Remove spark plug first) If its the deck beat the chit out of it. May help to turn it red.
If it's only the deck it won't hurt anything to bang it back to where it doesn't hit anymore.

[garboui]

both sides of the blade touch at the same spot.

just tried starting it sand blade. seemed to turn over smoothly but nothing but kickback. checked the flywheel key and its still good, so probably not cranking properly from having no blade.

the downside though is that i managed to strip the crankshaft bolt that holds the flywheel on along with some of the threads on the cs. Hoping its worth the effort to fix the threads and then the deck now.


i just love how simple jobs mushroom in to larger ones

[mllester]

At the risk of being the glass half empty guy, I don't think a foreign object//abruptly stopping an air-cooled engine encounter has ever had a happy ending for me. Maybe its the shock stress on the crankshaft, bearings or connecting rod(s)? If I got them going again, they didn't last long.

Hope your's turns out better!

[elevator joe]

Iv'e pressed out a lot of mower decks with a porta-power.
Typical that you would use for auto body work. A hammer just bounces and does nothing. Constant pressure seems to work, you have more control and can dial things in as you like. Good luck!!

[BWS]

We call'm pogo sticks...and can say I've never bought one,haha.They're a bit Fred Flintstone compared to porta powers but hey....we've made them and they work great on certain jobs(and I have a porta pwr).


http://www.sjdiscounttools.com/atd-7579.html

[welder4956]

BFH is my weapon of choice for straightening mower decks. I have a lot of tree roots in my backyard that always seem to catch the edge of the deck and eventually push it into the blades. I pulled the deck off a couple of weeks ago and straightened it all back out with a 4 lb engineers hammer, then welded 1/2" round bar around the bottom edge to stiffen it up a bit.

[garboui]

Shes alive again!!!

I tapped the end of the crankshaft to fix my stripped threads problem. Some dead blow sledge action on the deck go things clearing again. Its been running for the last 20mins and everything seems great now!!!!

[southalabama]

I've taken a large adjustable wrench, and used it as a lever. Seemed to work better than the hammer.