Haynes Manuals
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Remember back when you were young, you used to go out on a Saturday morning
to tackle a piece of essential maintenance on your pride and joy. Inevitably it
was raining and the garage was either full of junk, or you just didn't have one
available for use. Your toolbox contained a set of mismatched metric and
imperial spanners, some of which were missing. Your favourite tool was the new
shiny metal shafted claw hammer ("Birmingham screwdriver") that you
had just bought from Halfords and clutched under your arm was the well thumbed
and oily copy of the Haynes manual for your car.
You went and did this for one of three reasons:
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- Everything on the car was working fine, but you enjoyed tinkering with it
to perform "essential" maintenance items and tune it up to go
faster yet. This is classified as "If it ain't broken, don't mess with
it"
- The service manual said it needed a service and anyway, how difficult can
it be to reset points and tappets and adjust mixture and timing?
- Something was badly wrong - usually the head gasket or some major internal
gearbox component and you couldn't afford to take it to the garage. At this
stage, due to your trusty Haynes manual and a big dose of blind optimism,
you hadn't realised that you couldn't afford not to take it to the garage.
What you didn't realise at the time was that "Politically Correct"
or PC, was already alive and well in the land of Haynes publishing and most of
what was written in the books had been sanitised from it's previous incarnation,
written by true motor mechanics, to something that was more appropriate for
consumption by the general public. The other thing they forgot to mention was
that any of the things described should only be attempted on vehicles less than
one month old as otherwise nothing would look like it did in the pictures and
there would be corrosion and seized bits at every turn.
So for those of you with memories of loosing all the skin off your knuckles
on a rainy Saturday morning - here are the translations from the Haynes manuals
that never got into the final published version:
Haynes Manual Version
|
Translation
|
| Rotate anticlockwise. |
Clamp with molegrips then beat repeatedly with hammer anticlockwise. |
| This is a snug fit. |
You will skin your knuckles! |
| This is a tight fit. |
Not a hope in hell matey! |
| As described in Chapter 7... |
That'll teach you not to read through before you start. |
Now you are looking at scary photos of the inside of a gearbox.
|
| Pry... |
Hammer a screwdriver into... |
| Undo... |
Go buy a tin of WD40 (catering size). |
| Retain tiny spring... |
"Jeez what was that, it nearly had my eye out"! |
| Press and rotate to remove bulb... |
OK - that’s the glass bit off, now fetch some good pliers to dig out the bayonet part. |
| Lightly... |
Start off lightly and build up till the veins on your forehead are throbbing then re-check the manual because what you are doing now cannot be considered "lightly". |
| Weekly checks... |
If it isn't broken don't fix it! |
| Routine maintenance... |
If it isn't broken... it's about to be! |
Haynes Spanner Ratings:
|
| One spanner rating. |
Your Mum could do this... so how did you manage to botch it up ? |
| Two-spanner rating. |
Now you may think that you can do this because two is a low, tiny, ikkle number... but you also thought that the wiring diagram was a map of the Tokyo underground (in fact that would have been more use to you). |
| Four-spanner rating. |
You are seriously considering this aren't you, you pleb! |
| Five-spanner rating. |
OK - but don't expect us to travel in it afterwards!!! |
| If not, you can fabricate your own special tool like this... |
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!! |
| Compress... |
Squeeze with all your might, jump up and down on, swear at, throw at the garage wall, then search for it in the dark corner of the garage whilst muttering "bugger" repeatedly under your breath. |
| Inspect... |
Squint at really hard and pretend you know what you are looking at, then declare in a loud knowing voice to your wife "Yep, as I thought, it's going to need a new one"! |
| Carefully... |
You are about to cut yourself! |
| Retaining nut... |
Yes, that's it, that big spherical blob of rust. |
| Get an assistant... |
Prepare to humiliate yourself in front of someone you know. |
| Turning the engine will be easier with the spark plugs removed. |
However, starting the engine afterwards will be much harder. Once that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach has subsided, you can start to feel deeply ashamed as you gingerly refit the spark plugs. |
| Refitting is the reverse sequence to removal. |
But you swear in different places. |
| Prise away plastic locating pegs... |
Snap off... |
| Using a suitable drift... |
The biggest nail in your toolbox isn't a suitable drift! |
| Everyday toolkit. |
Ensure you have an RAC Card & Mobile Phone |
| Apply moderate heat... |
Placing your mouth near it and huffing isn't moderate heat. |
| Index. |
List of all the things in the book bar the thing you want! |
