OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums General Discussion Forum Power Equipment...Mishaps and Funny Stuff Husqvarna leaf blower (near) incident

I will admit I am not a good leaf blower user - mine spend 90% of life at idle or low throttle. As I use good oil, the only downside is occasional oil drip.

Decided to blow a garden full of leaves into one pile and then mulch up.

The husqvarna worked perfect. It had a massive cleanout running full throttle for a full tank of fuel.

The problem came right at the end - I had a massive pile of leaves ready to mulch. Very dry leaves.

As I blew the last onto the pile, I let off full throttle and went straight back to idle.

Turns out the hard running had heated the spark arrestor enough to loosen the couple of carbon deposits.

To my dismay, as I came off throttle I saw 2 glowing tiny pin heads of carbon shoot straight into the pile of dry leaves.


Fortunately some furious stomping and general kicking of the pile, any sign of fire was gone.

Nearly was a big mishap

My Solo hasn't run in a few weeks and it had some throttle lag when I used it the other day. Hesitated to go higher when I depressed the trigger. No flat spots just a delay.

Every now and again, I take the spark arrestor out of my Stihl blower, lie it on a fire brick and heat the mesh to orange heat with a butane torch, once all the gunk is reduced to ash and it’s cooled down, I blow it out with compressed air.

I do this to burn off all the carbon deposits which would, eventually, obstruct the exhaust and can flake off at inopportune moments. I’ve had suggestions that I throw the arrestor out but that’d be recklessly irresponsible in my view.

Yes those spark arresters have to be clean every so often. Most operators dont ever run at full throttle long enough to keep them clean on their own.

Yes, I have never cleaned a spark arrestor on my own equipment, beyond initially after purchase. This husky has its arrestor visible through the exhaust pipe and it looked very clean.

When I shut it off after the incident it was the nice straw colour of hot metal. Come to think of it, I never cleaned the husky spark arrestor after picking it up on the verge collection.


Ironbark, I have seen too many BG56 & 86 stihls with the spark arrestor clogging regardless of oil or ratio.
If every owner was astute enough to do what you do, I would have serviced a lot fewer stihls.

They always say 'its bogging down, the carby is clogged' to which I respond 'Its not that it can't breathe, it can't s***'. Then get a 14mm socket and show them the massive amount of gunk has turned their spark arrestor into a cork.

The worst oil for it is apparently the genuine stihl oil. It is a great oil, provided you rev the hell out of the motor all the time. Otherwise it will carbon up.

I’ve used a few stihl blowers and they exhibit the same issue. This particular one is 10plus years old and although not abused, has been used a lot and is still a strong unit.

I buy the fully synthetic oil in bulk with a friend and have found that, aside from the spark arrestor issue with blowers I’ve had very few issues. I have 8 stihl 2-strokes engines on various equipment in regular use and they are worked pretty hard at times. I do the recommended maintenance on my gear and make sure things are put away clean and ready to go. The “grumpiest” is the hedge trimmer, bit of a bear to start sometimes but otherwise I’d be splitting hairs to find fault.