[67drake]

Originally Posted by Shiny

With zero experience straightening forks, I'll jump in anyway.

I suggest you NOT heat it, as it is probably made of a heat-treated, tough alloy like 4140.

Heating enough to help bend it will weaken by annealing, or worse, could embrittle if the heat is high enough. To make it "tough" typically involves tempering back from a quenched, brittle state.... in other words, a controlled heat-treating process that will be difficult to reproduce with a torch, along with being "localized"

The fact that it bent without breaking shows the fork has significant ductility. Like a coat hanger, you should be able to just bend it back with low risk for it breaking and without decreasing its strength.

Net: I'd try and find a way to straighten it without heat. Will obviously involve some big forces or big levers, but you have a big machine behind the forks. Ask the guy that bent it how it happened and try to replicate the scenario in reverse...

Good luck!

Mike

Yeah, that guy doesn’t work here anymore!
Good info though. We have a full size Kubota “farm” tractor , which is what we usually use it on. I’m sure we could figure out some way to give it the beans to bend it back.