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Since I first passed my driving test (circa 1965), I have
owned and ran every banger you can imagine. My first-ever car was a 1956
Hillman Minx with a slipping clutch. By careful driving I did about 1000 miles
but then, when I found myself having to avoid steep hills, I thought is was
time to get the clutch fixed, but whatever it cost in those days was a lot of
money, so with the help of a friend, I set about getting the gearbox out. I knew the gearbox had to come out, but no
idea how that happened. To make things worse, neither did my friend, but we
knew where it was and lying on our backs under the car, set about unscrewing
every nut and bolt we could see. Well, it was bound to come out sooner or
later! Well it did along with a shower of smelly black oil all over our heads
and clothing! You can imagine what my
mother had to say! And my father wasn’t too pleased either because now my old banger was
stuck on bricks in his garage. He took one look at it and it was obvious to him
that neither my friend nor I would have the first idea about how to put it all
back together again – so the car was sold for spares for £5. You didn’t
have top pay people to take them away in those days.
It was a few years later, when I was presented with another
expensive repair on my next car, a Ford Escort. It needed a new clutch! It wasn’t that I was
heavy on my clutches, it’s just that all I could afford in those days were cars
with heavy mileage on them. Hire-purchase (credit) was never an option – my father
didn’t agree with it.
The Haynes
Workshop Manuals had just hit the market and I
got one for the Escort before making the attempt. A work colleague had one for
his Vauxhall and it had looked very good.
Looking through the pages of the Haynes manual, I could see exactly how to remove a gearbox
and clutch, and then align and fit a new one. Clutch replacement in a garage
was around £40 in those days, there were no quick-fit centres and a car
was likely to be laid up for weeks. I paid out around ten
quid for the clutch parts needed. Again the same friend helped me out with the gear
box, but this time, within two hours I was back on the road with the car in
perfect running order.
Ever since then, every time I have bought a car (they have
got a lot newer now), I have bought the Haynes manual for that make and model.
I do my own servicing, using the excellent pictures and guids in the manual, and whilst the car does not end up with a
service history to add a couple of hundred quid to the trade-in value, I think
I profit more by what I save with my DIY.
One particular manual that in my opinion has saved me a
fortune is the Engine Management and Fuel Injection Systems manual. The first
car I owned with an engine management system was back in 1992 (a two-year-old
XR3i) and soon it was running too lean and overheating because of it, and had
difficult hot starting. These early E.M. systems did have problems. With the help of
the Haynes manual I managed to trace the problem to a faulty mixture sensor (the
air/petrol ratio was all over the place). £25 for a new sensor fixed that
problems and similar sensor problems were also fixed during my long ownership
of the car. Plugging the car into an analyser at the Ford garage was the only
other option – I think it was £80 just for a diagnosis! I owned this car for 10 years but would have
got rid of it a lot sooner if it hadn’t been for Haynes.
It isn’t just cars and motorbikes, that Haynes do workshop
manuals for. Other Haynes manuals I own is Washerdrier and Tumbledrier manual
which covers every washerdrier from AEG to Zanussi. I have successfully fixed heating elements, pumps and valves etc.
And once fixed some new brushes in the motor ( cost 70p) An engineer would have
probably charged me “I-don’t-know-what” for a new motor.
My latest acquisition is the Haynes Computer Manual, which I
have used to add an extra hard drive, memory, modem, replaced my CD RW and
more. I am now looking to build a super-fast hi-tech machine, just for the hell
of it, and then I can make a comparison between what I have built and what it
would cost me in the shops.
Coming back to my cars, I now only do servicing (oil changes
etc,) and pre-MOT checks. Because of
arthritis in my neck, I tend to leave other larger repairs to the local garage
because it’s too painful to lie under the vehicle for long periods. But one
advantage I have now is that I can tell a mechanic specifically what needs
doing and he knows that I know what I’m talking about. So there’s no chance of
having unnecessary work done - one hears about so much in the media about
unscrupulous garages these days. And this is thanks to the Haynes manual.
If somebody is not very mechanically minded, Haynes now
rates each job with small icons of spanners (wrenches) – the more spanners the higher
degree of difficulty for the job. They also have a weekly checks section,
routine maintenance section (for servicing including the correct oils and other
lubricants needed for the model of car in question), trouble-shooting section,
bodywork section, electrical section and an index. The books are compiled during a complete strip-down and reassembly
of the car/motorbike/other product in question taking photographs and/or
drawing explanatory diagrams at the same time.
If DIY is something that you are willing to take up with
cars and/or other appliances, or you just want to learn something about these
items, then I cannot fault the Haynes manuals.
Thanks for reading.
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