Would you damage the FEL by putting ballast weight on one side of the bucket? Depends on how much time you plan to spend running with it set up like that. If you need to do that for an hour once in a while to mow your farm pond, it's probably no big deal. As others say, having a lop-sided FEL load is pretty routine. And if it keeps you and your tractor out of the drink, it's worth doing. But if you plan on mowing the entire shoreline of Lake Michigan or something, better come up with a better ballasting arrangement. I have heard that even the big highway offset mowing rigs with their side flails and boom mowers are prone to excessive wear on the rear axles, bearings, etc. due to the unbalanced loading of those mowers. Our compact-type equipment is even less suited to that kind of operation.