It does kinda make you wonder who writes for Haynes and Chilton....       The people that write for Haynes are on par with Quick305, whereas the people that write for Chiltons are a step a head, or they try to be. If your new to cars, either book can be a good help, as they explain enough to get you started, and tell you how it goes back together.       But on the other hand, they say you should not do thing that you should, and say you can do thing you should not. An example of this comes to mind from about a year or so back. One of the guys at work bought his daughter a Chevette and a Haynes manual for said car, as well as her own set of tools. He told her to do what he had to when he got his first car, learn to fix it. Well she ended up blowing the motor in it, and looked in to changing it. She then took the book to her dad and showed him what it said. He then brought the book in to work, photocopied the page, and passed out the copies. I still laugh my ass off when I look at it, and see them advising Chevette owners to use Rope and a Tree Limb to pull the motor with!         Yeah, you laugh.  I watched a guy pull a small block out of a mid 70's truck using a come-along on a tree branch.  A rope, though, would be pure comedy Justin:         The problem with Tree Limbs is, how do you know how much weight it will take? Now I could probably take a guess and be all right, but a novice teenager who knows close to nothing about wood? They might try with a sapling, a limb to small, a dead tree, or what have you. It could get ugly and quick.         And then think of the rope that would be needed to do it with. I don't know about where you live, but the last time I was at my local hard wear store, I could not find rope strong enough to support 400 lbs. ************************************************************************ Got Balls? This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Take me down to Parisite city, where the Girls are sleezy, and the women are Easy... Ohh wont you please take me home.-Mac Balls.

understand that they aren't going to give detailed advice on how to set up a rear end or rebuild an auto trans.  However, I do expect to be able to follow their instructions on removing a heater core.  The Haynes manual for the Olds sucks, there's no other way to describe it. The few little things I wanted it to have, like removing a heater core and showing me where the ac wiring was were pathetic.  Steps were missing, imcomplete, and two were just flat wrong.  I worry about someone relying on those things to fix their only car and that doesn't know enough to spot those pitfalls.  Afterall, the only reason for buying the damn things is to guide you on how to do it right.  I've seen magazine articles with better instructions than they write. Ok, then what do you guys recommend?  I'm trying to do quite a bit of learning as I go along.  This is my daily summer driver (well, the winter beater will be on the road this summer, too, to allow for work to be done to the TA), and it's a nice car, IMO, so I'd like to do all the jobs right.  If you can recommend a good manual, that would be great.  I'd really hate to follow some bad instructions and permanently damage my ride.      For a manual, get a Helm manual for your car.  www.helminc.com is their site, I think.  If not, search for Helm and Publishing and it ought to turn up.  They're more expensive than Haynes, but it's worth it, especially if you need good instructions.  For general learning, I'd suggest some of the SA Design series of books.  They won't tell you how to do something specific to the car, but are a good source of information you can apply to a variety of situations.  How to Hot Rod the Small Block Chevy is dated, but it's a classic.  I like the book How to Build Horsepower as a good overview of the engine in general, and it deals mostly with the SBC.  

   But if you want a good book on cars, the Motor's books were pretty good. To bad I have not seen one for sale any place in the last 10 years. I used to have a set that covered from 1968 to 1978. They even went so far as to publish illustrations of car front ends so you could tell what yours was supposed to look like.      Motor books still exist, they just aren't common.  They're ok and have a broad coverage, but aren't really a good manual on a specific car.  Still, they do have things like torque specs in them.  

      But if you want a good book on cars, the Motor's books were pretty good. To bad I have not seen one for sale any place in the last 10 years. I used to have a set that covered from 1968 to 1978. They even went so far as to publish illustrations of car front ends so you could tell what yours was supposed to look like.      Motor books still exist, they just aren't common.  They're ok and have a broad coverage, but aren't really a good manual on a specific car.  Still, they do have things like torque specs in them.         Who sells them? Got a URL or even a number to call to get them? My first book on cars was a Motor's manual that covered my first car, a 69 Camaro (I miss that bitch).

Get the OE factory manual from Helm on your car..well worth the money.. You can get them used, that's what i did..got a complete set for my t/a for 66 bucks (it's three books that year..).  They give the best information specific to the car if that's what you're after. www.helminc.com is the url. I got mine from dan bower at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it  he was quite reasonable.... Good luck.. Joe with 1980 Turbo Trans Am (26k original) http://www.geocities.com/ad_container/pop.html?cuid=10185&keywords=AD...