Husqvarna 268 metal chunks in exhaust

[WoodRaider]

Hey guys, first post here, I joined up to be the one to query this as I googled my issue and found absolutely nothing.

I have a Husqvarna 268. It's my main firewood saw. I ran it yesterday and cut a ute load of firewood, worked beautifully, as always. My new bar and chains arrive in the mail, happy days! Whacking them on and moving the saw around, I notice a slight rattle coming from the muffler when I jostle the saw. Curious as to what it was, I took the spark arrester off and shook my saw around to see if anything would come out. Sure enough, 3 significant chunks of metal!



Now, I'm no chainsaw expert, but to me that seems to suggest a problem. It's my favourite saw so my heart is in my mouth at this point. I took the exhaust off and peered at the cylinder and piston. Seems completely fine to me, but like I said, I'm no expert.



Piston and ring.


Back wall of the cylinder.

At this point I'm lost. I was expecting it to be a disaster in there. The best part is it definitely has great compression from the feel of pulling it over; no change in compression at all as far as I can tell. Put it all back together and she fired right up and ran like a champion.

Sooo... do I worry about it? I don't really want to pull the whole cylinder off seeing as it's still going fine, and I'm not sure if I'd find a new cylinder or piston even if it needed them, which it doesn't look like it does to me. It's hard to see in my photo, but I noticed the skirt of the piston had a thin layer of oil on it, not sure if that's meant to be the case. Could those chunks be from the piston ring?

Thanks for any insight as to what is going on here, I'm baffled!

 

[river of smoak]

have you tried a magnet near the pieces ?

 

[WoodRaider]

have you tried a magnet near the pieces ?

I haven't, good thinking 99! I'm not sure if I have a magnet or where one might be if I do. I'll scrounge around for a bit and see.

 

[singinwoodwackr]

Doesn’t look like anything from the cyl.
im trying to remember if there is anything in those mufflers that might contribute…

 

[WoodRaider]

have you tried a magnet near the pieces ?

I tried a magnet and nothing. Same magnet would pick up the bar nuts but no reaction to these chunks.

 

[river of smoak]

looks like whatever it is it was polished smooth from rattling around inside the muffler

 

[WoodRaider]

Doesn’t look like anything from the cyl.
im trying to remember if there is anything in those mufflers that might contribute…

That might be interesting. Maybe something on the inside of the muffler melted and started dripping? I certainly never noticed my saw being abnormally hot.

 

[WoodRaider]

looks like whatever it is it was polished smooth from rattling around inside the muffler

Yeah they had likely been in there a while before I noticed. The rattle was only slight, I didn't notice until I had the bar off and was flipping it over to look at the bottom of the saw.

 

[singinwoodwackr]

looks like whatever it is it was polished smooth from rattling around inside the muffler

And been there a long time…

 

[singinwoodwackr]

Do you have a bore scope camera? Through the spark plug hole might show what can’t be seen otherwise. But…since compression is good and it runs normally I doubt there is any internal issue.

 

[singinwoodwackr]

Could have been an accumulation of stuff from the muffler gasket, plate, etc especially if the bolts were a tad loose…which it looks like from the pics.

 

[WoodRaider]

Do you have a bore scope camera? Through the spark plug hole might show what can’t be seen otherwise. But…since compression is good and it runs normally I doubt there is any internal issue.

Unfortunately I'm not that well equipped. All I've got are my eyeballs and a headlamp.

The saw has been dead reliable for all these years, and in spite of whatever these things are it still runs just like it always has. I think I will just keep running it and see what happens. I'd imagine if those bits came from the motor and didn't cause an issue then, then running it shouldn't make it worse. If it was going to blow up then it should've done it already, surely.

 

[Czed]

Could be left over weld from the muffler seam inside.

 

[WoodRaider]

Could have been an accumulation of stuff from the muffler gasket, plate, etc especially if the bolts were a tad loose…which it looks like from the pics.

You might be right. I cleaned it all up and will check how it looks after a while. Does it need a gasket around that exhaust port? If it does then I'll have to go get some.

 

[Czed]

You might be right. I cleaned it all up and will check how it looks after a while. Does it need a gasket around that exhaust port? If it does then I'll have to go get some.

Yes those can have either a metal gasket or a fiber style
I have over a dozen 268 and 272s

 

[WoodRaider]

Could be left over weld from the muffler seam inside.

That's a really good theory. It looks like weld, or at least something that melted at some stage. I like that sound of that a lot better than my theory of it being bits of piston and cylinder!

 

[Czed]

That's a really good theory. It looks like weld, or at least something that melted at some stage. I like that sound of that a lot better than my theory of it being bits of piston and cylinder!

You have a catastrophic failure if those chunks had come in contact with the piston
If the saw rolls over smoothly and has good compression run it.

 

[WoodRaider]

Yes those can have either a metal gasket or a fiber style
I have over a dozen 268 and 272s

Thanks. A quick search found heaps of gaskets. I'll whack one on there.

 

[WoodRaider]

You have a catastrophic failure if those chunks had come in contact with the piston
If the saw rolls over smoothly and has good compression run it.

Yeah that makes sense. My mechanical skills and knowledge are basic at best. It was a little perplexing to find those things in there and my first irrational thought was of the worst case scenario. Saw runs fine so I'll keep chugging along with the old girl.

 

[Czed]

Thanks. A quick search found heaps of gaskets. I'll whack one on there.

If you ever need to do a piston swap the hyway popup does very good in those
It gives them a nice compression bump.