While I’ve enjoyed the John Deere zero turn mower that I purchased earlier in the summer, especially after all of its initial problems, I’ve occasionally had issues with it getting stuck. It has trouble generating traction on hills because of its weight distribution, and it also has a habit of getting one tire stuck in divots in the ground when mowing some of the trails and paths on my land. I am planning on getting more off-road friendly tires for it, but in the meantime I installed a manual winch that I can use to help pull it out of predicaments by simply attaching the winch line to a tree and turning the crank. I went with a worm gear hand winch, so that it could be mounted low on the mower’s foot deck and cranked from above.
I bolted the winch’s enclosure to the mower, and it works great! It is easy to operate, and provides enough force to help the mower out of jams when it gets stuck.
