I’m about to lose a major contract because our 20-year-old line finally gave up the ghost

I have been running a production shop for a decade and we have survived by keeping our overhead low and maintaining our gear ourselves.. Yesterday the main hydraulic press on our primary line suffered a catastrophic frame failure. The main hydraulic press is the backbone of our operation and without it, we are essentially dead in the water.

I have an order due in three weeks and the client is already breathing down my neck about the timeline. I spent all morning calling around for a replacement. The lead times are absolutely terrible. Six months for a custom build. Out of desperation I started looking into direct factory listings on amazon and Alibaba just to see if any overseas suppliers had standard frames in stock that we could air-freight over.

I was shocked to see that the base engineering for some of these units is identical to the domestic brands we usually buy but at a third of the cost. The main hydraulic press is a gamble though. If I invest in industrial machinery right now I am wiping out our entire emergency fund.

My lead tech thinks we can weld the frame back together as a temporary fix but I am worried it will just fail again mid-run and potentially hurt someone.

I am considering a tracked import of the main hydraulic press and I want to know if I am crazy, for doing so or should I just take the loss on this contract and wait for a domestic unit of the main hydraulic press?