The words many a kerbside car mechanic read with an impending sense of dread when he saw it in his bible, the Haynes manual. The founder, John Haynes died yesterday. Once an essential tool in any motorists armoury, the manuals became increasingly riddled with mistakes and omissions in later years and for most of us became redundant when You Tube came along. Still, they used to be an essential source of information back in the day and often the first purchase after acquiring a new vehicle. So hats off to a life not wasted.
I bought several in my earlier days of kerbside mechanics. The first use was to renew the headgasket on my Ford Anglia. All done on a saturday morning and it started first time. I still have the Haynes bike book on the shelf.
You can't beat working on a critical part of a Vauxhall Astra, turning the page at a crucial moment of the repair to be faced with a picture of an Allegro engine bay. You never got that sort of laugh with the clinically accurate Clymer manuals.
I had one for my Reliant Tuppaware Tripod, it came in very handy when I was removing the steering A frame after I crashed the car into someone’s front wall in Staines.
After ages trying to work out how to remove the thingumybob I'd reach for the Haynes manual which would invariably state - 5.6 Remove the thingumybob using a suitable tool. So RIP Mr Haynes. 5.7 Using a suitable excavator dig a six foot deep hole.
I recall the ones for my Mk1 Fiesta and Sierra being very good. Later ones less so, they even stopped being hardback and the pages were like newspaper. The one for my T5 van is not as useful as YouTube or forums.
Oh for the happy days of browsing through the Auto Trader and finding cars advertised for sale complete with a copy of the Haynes manual.
Undo nut and slide the bolt out... Several hours later after using big hammer and acetylene torch it slides out Bless him
It's a long time ago now, but I seem to recall that the Haynes manual used to swear blind that you needed some special centring tool in order to change a Mini clutch (you didn't). Ditto the Focus manual claiming that you needed to dismantle various bits before you could change the crash sensor (after it had been b*gg*r*d by an idiot mechanic at Halfords) or even a headlamp bulb, come to that.
