So I was mowing 2 weeks ago - and every week I try to reclaim a little yard from the woods by mowing a little more each week - and I went a little to far. I hit a root/rock which bent the front of the deck into the blade, stopped the blade and made a lot of smoke.

I have fixed it with a blowtorch and hammer, but does not cut the same. Now it has a really un level cut which I seem to be unble to correct.

I have grown to love my 37" deck, but have no idea what to do. New deck completely? New shell? Is it possible to fix the shell?

Greg

you might have acctualy bent the sheet metal where the spindle for the blade mounts to when the deck hit the blade the torque had to go somewhere and thus prolly bowed the top of the deck on that side.

Hi, Greg,

As a fellow 37" SD owner and afficianado, I feel your pain. I think it's probably fixable, though.

First, have you checked the blade that got whacked to be sure it's still straight?

Second, there's a strong possibility that when the blade tied into the housing, the momentum may have forced the spindle to twist against the top of the deck shell and "warped" it. Couple of ways to check this that I can think of. One is a straightedge across the top of the deck shell in a few different areas to see if the relative distances remain the same as you check. Another is to flip the deck over, line the blades up end to end and lay a straightedge across them. I think they should form a fairly straight line. If not, the blade that didn't get whacked can act as your guide to straighten things up. My guess is this will require taking the misaligned spindle out so you can get some leverage on the shell to straighten the metal then a few -*test*-('") fits to see how you're doing.

The good news is the metal in the shell isn't thick enough but what it can be worked with. The bad news is the metal in the deck shell isn't thick enough but what it bends pretty easily when it gets whacked.

Do you know yet whether or not the spindle got cracked or the bearings are damaged?

Duff

I've had to do this fix to the 6' rear mower on my 1020 JD. I bent the deck, made from 1/4" steel, when I hit the "Granddaddy of all tree roots". After straightening the deck (see "Blade Leveling" below), I started in on blade leveling 101!

"Deck Straightening"
I also had to straighten the one side of the mower by backing it under one of the haylofts in the barn, putting a jack under one side (on the lowest section where I needed to straighten it) and a wood fence post (vertically) between the mower's highest area and the hayloft cross-beam, which supports the hayloft, then I jacked the kink out of the mower...now it mows almost as good, if not better, than it did before the tree root messed it up!!!
A building should have enough weight to straighten most kinks out. Probably needless to say, but if the building starts to list to one side...stop jacking!!! Good luck on your quest for a level mower!!!

"Blade Leveling"
Working under the mower, find out which blade is out of line...and levelness...and then loosen THAT spindle's bolts, and put washers that fit the bolts between the mating surface of the spindle and the bottom of the mower deck, making sure the spindle-bolts pass through the holes of the washers to keep them from vibrating out and leaving you with "floppy spindle syndrome".
I usually have to loosen ALL the bolts, but I usually only have to "washer" one or two of the bolts between the mower-deck bottom-side and the mating surface of the spindle where it sets up against the underside of the deck. As you can probably tell, I've had to do this several times, so I'm somewhat skilled at this fix!!!
Add washers until you get the blade that's out of level to match the other blades. I've had do a couple of trial-fits with the bolts tightened, since the washers will crush somewhat, and that will sometimes mean adding 1, or more, washers and re-tightening again.
While this may sound a bit shade-tree mechanic-ish (a.k.a. REDNECK fix), it tends to do the job.