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Repair manual?

pabster

pabster

Well-Known Member
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Location
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Howdy all,

So one of my new year resolutions is to do more maintenance and work on my car myself. Thought I'd start with a point of reference, as in a repair manual of some sort. So what's out there?

Can I get a repair manual for my '74 Charger from Mopar? Or do I go with Chilton or Haynes?

Any tips on what and where to go to get such a manual would be much appreciated...

-a guy who loves cars and barely knows how to do anything under the hood :iamwithstupid:
 
I Don't know if you can still get one from Chrysler, but check eBay, Craigslist, Kijiji for one.
I recently picked up a 1972 Chassis manual for 25 bucks, and a 72 body manual for 15 bucks.
 
Pabs, if you can find the factory service manual, i would grab it with both hands. the haynes/chilton/etc. are garbage in my opinion. the factory manuals have everything you need to know bout Avocado Gold...
 
Cool. Just ordered the full FSM on CD for $35 from Bishko Auto Literature. I can print out whatever I need... looking forward to learning something useful soon!
 
pabster said:
Cool. Just ordered the full FSM on CD for $35 from Bishko Auto Literature. I can print out whatever I need... looking forward to learning something useful soon!
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Good for you, have fun now... soon we will be asking the Pabster for his repair/mechanical advice...LOL..

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yep a "Factory Service Manual" Book or CD/DVD {specific for your model & year} is the best wealth of knowledge you can buy for working on your own car... when you get confused, you can always come here, ask a detailed question, we will try to educate you on the rest of the way...LOL...
 
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Welcome to the world of greasy fingernails and filthy coveralls. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
 
The one thing about getting a manual on cd is save all the files on your hard drive or a flash drive as soon as you get it. A lot of them are just put on writable cd's and they only last a year or two before they can't be read anymore. Also, a lot of times it is cheaper to buy the printed manual by the time you pay for ink cartridges and paper to print out a bunch of stuff. They are really handy for looking up something simple though.

The old Chilton/Haynes/Clymer books were pretty generic. They were ok for basic stuff, but usually not too specific.
 
Good for you Pabster! Its always gratifying when we can get the work done without taking it to a garage, Don't forget that its great to have the service manual hanging in the garage but you also have the world at your keyboard to.. Saving links on different things in a folder is something ive done for years, if you want info on how to, You can see what others did to fix the various problems,electrical, engine, trans, lighting diagrams, ect.. same for parts links and different places to get particular tools, along with parts.. For basic use i keep a Haynes manual around that has helped me with many things, it is yes, a basic repair but has diagrams specs, ect.. Ive found it a great help for my 73 and my Ram.. To each his own, I like them myself..
 
Somebody asking me for mechanical advice... now that's funny. How to deal with something under the hood is one of the few areas where I definitely will NOT offer my opinion. :) I'm also thinking about checking out the local community college, maybe I can take an intro course on the workings of vehicles.

Thanks for the tips and tricks as usual, guys.
 
pabster said:
Somebody asking me for mechanical advice... now that's funny. How to deal with something under the hood is one of the few areas where I definitely will NOT offer my opinion. :) I'm also thinking about checking out the local community college, maybe I can take an intro course on the workings of vehicles.

Thanks for the tips and tricks as usual, guys.
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It's not a bad idea to take a community college course to help develop some general mechanical skills if you have the desire and time. The only problem is that they have to concentrate on later model vehicles rather than the older cars that we like to wrench on. I don't want to discourage you though, I just want you to know what you will see in a typical college auto shop program. A friend of mine runs the program for the local college and he told me that they spend about 30 minutes on carburetors because they know that their students will rarely work on one. They spend a week+ on late model fuel injection. You get the idea.
 
Yeah, Moparsmitty, that's what I figured. It would be cool if I could find a course where you bring your own car in to learn to wrench on, but I don't know if that's even possible anymore. People probably will just say "watch a video on You Tube!" :(
 
pabster said:
Yeah, Moparsmitty, that's what I figured. It would be cool if I could find a course where you bring your own car in to learn to wrench on, but I don't know if that's even possible anymore. People probably will just say "watch a video on You Tube!" :(
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Im not trying to be funny here when i say Pabster, one of the best classes one could take on Mopars is right here. This site has more of a knowledge base of information anyone owning a Mopar could ever hope to find, The search engine here is available or just asking about advice on something.. I always pretty much held on the body and paint things when it came to cars, very little on the mechanics of things and i think ive learned more hear from everyone then i could possibly get from a book, even diagrams/pictures showing me or others whats being talked about, why it does what it has to and what symptoms to look for with any givin problem. This IMHO is one heck of a place to learn, and i don't know of anything that ive tried to find that i couldn't one way or the other lol, I tell friends about this site and i come right out and mention these guys here as pros, in mechanics and in restoring cars.. it has it all, the only thing we don't have that a college has is the girls, and there here most of the time, Mario makes sure of that for us! ;)
 
Where are you in Nor Cal? Maybe you need to come by Mongo Motors (nick name for my shop) and take the basic automotive class. I have at least 4 different sizes of hammers. Ok, seriously, if you are close by and want some visual advice I can help you out. But like Ron said, lots of good people on here to get you out of (or into) just about anything. Glad you want to dig in deeper.
 
That's a nice offer, Meep. If I remember right, you live near Concord, right? I'm in Marin, so about an hour each way. I'm assuming I could drive my Charger over and take the basic class learning on it... and I'd get to meet you and see your shop and amazing collection of vehicles! Sounds like a great plan to me. Let me know when you offer the class, how many classes it is, time, that sort of thing. With 2 kids, getting time off to wrench cars is a challenge, but doable with enough advanced planning.
 
pabster said:
Somebody asking me for mechanical advice... now that's funny. How to deal with something under the hood is one of the few areas where I definitely will NOT offer my opinion. :) I'm also thinking about checking out the local community college, maybe I can take an intro course on the workings of vehicles.

Thanks for the tips and tricks as usual, guys.
Click to expand...

I thought you would like that one... I think anyone can learn automotive basics & it's not rocket science to do the basics, it's just mechanicals & common sense or simple parts replacement mostly, newer cars it's a little different, allot of electronics & special tools needed, older cars it's really a breeze, once you do it a couple times, it becomes routine or second nature, trouble-shooting &/or diagnosis is probably the toughest part to learn, probably has the most variables too... a community college course, depending on the automotive instructor {some are absolutely worthless, too basic, don't cover what your interested in}, but that could be a great idea...

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I highly suggest, when you work on something your not familiar with, take lots photos of before you start removing parts, at different angles, thru out the disassembly, to have some kind of photo references, to be able to go back to, if necessary...
 
My shop is actually in San Ramon but I grew up in Concord. I don't have an actual class but do help out some folks when they need it so you are welcome to come by on a weekend. I'd love to see your Charger! My car collection mostly is made up of rusty beaters and parts everywhere!! I'll PM you with my work number.
 
Meep-Meep said:
My shop is actually in San Ramon but I grew up in Concord. I don't have an actual class but do help out some folks when they need it so you are welcome to come by on a weekend. I'd love to see your Charger! My car collection mostly is made up of rusty beaters and parts everywhere!! I'll PM you with my work number.
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Concord Calif. raised members freaken' rock

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your a good guy meeps
 
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