Is It Wrong To Modify Someones Saw and Not Tell Them?

[Gypo Logger]

I get asked once in a while to work on friends saws. Often I do it free or in return for a favour.
Anyway, a friend of mine asked if I would smarten up his severely hurting 026 older model.
I thought this would be a perfect chance to guinea pig out his rocked out club. So after a few helicoils and other terminal parts like spocket and carb kit, I muffler modded it and thought why should I stop there?
So I took the jug and removed the carbon on the exhaust side and honed off say 10-15 thou. worth of alumnumb maybe, and the same on the intake side and blended all the edges nice and round. I also pulled out the head gasket and replaced it with gasket cement.
Wow, did it ever get up and talk with boatloads of torque with the 325 semirocked chisel chain.
I noticed the intake side of the piston was slightly scored, so I cross hatched it with some scotchbrite like material.
If it doesn't blow up, I will tell him eventually, however if it pops tomorrow I guess I'll have to dig out one of my basket cases and start over.
John

 

[SWE#Kipp]

Right or wrong ,,,

I would call it a very friendly move from your side ,,, wish some of my friends would treat me like that ,,,, Hmm wait they wont , Nahh they think i'm a chainsaw nerd ,yep that's it ,,, guess i have to move to canada and become friend with the great Gypo Logger

A very nice little treat of your friend !!!


/Kristoffer

 

[GASoline71]

Hell Gyp, if I had asked to have a saw "smartened up" and it came back with all those things done to it, I would be thrilled. But I like Kristoffer am a saw nerd, so Ithink it's cool you did that for your friend.

So.... say I was to send you my 028..... will you "smarten" it up...... friend .

Gary

 

[timberwolf]

If the saw blows up and/or the guy hurts him self with the saw, you could be up the creek. The law would just love to say you sabotaged the saw with the intent of making it unsafe, causing injury or death....

 

[SWE#Kipp]

If the saw blows up and/or the guy hurts him self with the saw, you could be up the creek. The law would just love to say you sabotaged the saw with the intent of making it unsafe, causing injury or death....

Didn't see that one coming, Gypo "terror" logger :butt kick:
,, Hmm its all a big conspiracy !!!
Here my friend i have smarten your saw up (silent Moahaha) , now go and play with it i'am just gonna get my handy cam (Another evil Mohahaha) :angry2:

 

[kf_tree]

No john it's not wrong................i did some things to these saw's and i'm not going to tell the owner. ha ha ha

http://www.arboristsite.com/attachment_28591.php

 

[Kate Butler]

smartening up a saw

So.... say I was to send you my 028..... will you "smarten" it up...... friend .

You took the words right out of my mouth! (Except mine's a 26, too.)

 

[stihltech]

liability

As a dealer, I am holding the bag if I modify ANY part of a saw and someone gets hurt. Gotta love them lawyers.
As a private individual, if you charged him for the work, I would say you are holding the bag. If no money changed hands, you may be OK, but that will depend on the individual and his lawyer.

Some of you will cuss me out about these statments. All I ask is that you prove me wrong.

 

[tony marks]

my local dealer steers clear of any mods for the legal problems.he said the manufactures advised against it for that reason.
personnaly id appreciate the exstra effort. but if u can really make a difference ,. it mite be better to tell the owner as he mite get a little more saw than hes use to. had that happen to me once.dave niegra made a little more difference than i was expecting.took some getting use to.

 

[Gypo Logger]

I think a person would be hard pressed to make a saw blow up even if that was their intension. You would have to make it run backwards so it would kickup instead of kickback. lol
I mean it's not as though building a saw is as dangerous as this:

 

[keith c raymond]

:angry2: All I want to know is ,what color did you paint the jug???

 

[Toneman]

As a dealer, I am holding the bag if I modify ANY part of a saw and someone gets hurt. Gotta love them lawyers.
As a private individual, if you charged him for the work, I would say you are holding the bag. If no money changed hands, you may be OK, but that will depend on the individual and his lawyer.

Some of you will cuss me out about these statments. All I ask is that you prove me wrong.

Your absolutely correct Wayne.

The lawyers have a way of twisting things to make people or a company look bad in front of a jury. There have been some large dollar amounts awarded by a jury.

 

[badcars2]

i know the deal stihl tech

when i used to work for ford the teenage mustang crowd always wanted more power. couldnt do it at the dealership, but at the race track was a different story. i could download scary fuel maps and timing curves. but the dealer would have none of it so i guess i did it free of charge on my own time, just for fun!!!

 

[Lakeside53]

Stihl is pretty specific on this point : They will fight the lawsuits for or with you so long as you ONLY use Stihl parts, and no mods... It's just not worth it for the Dealer to get involved with modifying.

On the other hand, what happens at home stays at home...

 

[Billy_Bob]

Around here everyone modifies everything. And I have seen a lot of problems by things such as vehicles not having stock parts and such. A friend had a truck with a swapped out different engine. Well whoever swapped it out did not give him the timing information. So the label under the hood did not apply to the engine. My friend had no idea what he should set his timing to. And he could not look in a manual, ask dealer, etc.

Or swapped out carbuerator - same problems when needing parts.

I find it is easier to have a stock model [whatever], then when I need parts I can just order them using the make/model. Or if I need documentation, I get the service manual and it applies to everything.

I would want someone to ask me before making any modifications. And I would probaly say to keep it 100% stock.

 

[Mr.]

when i used to work for ford the teenage mustang crowd always wanted more power. couldnt do it at the dealership, but at the race track was a different story. i could download scary fuel maps and timing curves. but the dealer would have none of it so i guess i did it free of charge on my own time, just for fun!!!

I have worked at three Ford dealerships as a drivabilty tech. At two of the three I modified everything from daily drivers to a car that put Stormin Norman on notice (1997 Ennis, TX.) I don't remember if he beat the car, but the time was similar.

It is all up to the owner of the dealership. Most saw techs around here are busy enough fixing broke things. So, fixing things that are running right is out of the question.

Fred

 

[Dr. Dirt]

Hmmm...

Short answer to question posed,

Yes it is wrong and you should tell them what you have done.

Longer answer. Since you were asked to "smarten it up" and that leaves the door open for interpretation it seems that what you have done is probably OK as a personal favor. I would still tell the owner what was done.

If someone modified anything I sent in for repair and didn't tell me I would be extremely pissed (assuming I found out later) Not that it was modified, that I didn't know about it. I might insist on stock form, if I didn't agree to the mods, but for reasonable things like this saw I would probabaly be fine with it.

 

[Gypo Logger]

He indicated in previous conversations that he wanted the saw modifide, I just didn't elaborate with all the jargon when I gave it back to him.
It was almost ready for the parts bin anyway. Had it been a really nice saw to begin with I would not have taken the liberty of hacking on his saw. lol
John

 

[Mr.]

Forget about it. If you do my saws for free, I can't complain about the outcome.


Fred

 

[GASoline71]

John, my 028 is in the mail for "smartenin'"

Gary