dodge man
Super Star Member
I have a Stihl leaf blower BG 86 that is 8 years old, maybe 100 to 200 hours on it. Today it wouldn’t start. It seemed like a sudden problem, it ran fine last time, although when you go back and look at the past maybe it wasn’t running quite right. I bought a new spark plug, in tank fuel filter and air filter. No help. My gut reaction was no spark, I pulled the plug and tried to hold it near the head and sometimes got spark but not much. It’s very hard to do this while trying to pull the start chord and get good contact with the plug.
My gut reaction was wrong. After messing with the on off switch I pulled the spark arrestor and it started right up. The spark arrestor was badly plugged up. With mineral spirits, a brass brush and air it cleaned up. Reinstalled it and it’s all good. The bad part is I saw a YouTube video on this very problem but dismissed it at first because I thought the problem was sudden. The spark arrestor is about the size of a spark plug and has a fine mesh screen. I show a picture of it and where it installs in the muffler.
My gut reaction was wrong. After messing with the on off switch I pulled the spark arrestor and it started right up. The spark arrestor was badly plugged up. With mineral spirits, a brass brush and air it cleaned up. Reinstalled it and it’s all good. The bad part is I saw a YouTube video on this very problem but dismissed it at first because I thought the problem was sudden. The spark arrestor is about the size of a spark plug and has a fine mesh screen. I show a picture of it and where it installs in the muffler.