What's everyone out there using for shop manuals?

There's one on Amazon "Corvette, 1966-82 Shop Manual" by Motorbooks International. Anyone have an opinion on this manual or others out there?

 

I've got the original chevy shop manuals for my 72, along with the Ecklers or Mid America restoration manual and a Haynes Manual. Whenever I'm not sure about whatever I'm working on, I look at all the manuals, then use the one that seems to make the most sense. Can never have too many manuals.

trw

 

the Chassis Service Manual and any Technical/Servie Bulletins
the Chassis Overhaul Manual
the Assembly Instruction Manual (or AIM)
the NCRS judging guide
Vette Vues Fact Book
the NCRS technical board
the Corvette Forum board

I'm sure there are others...

and oh yeah, the laminated full color wiring diagrams from Olson Engineering

Don

 

If you plan to work on your car the Chevrolet Chassis Overhaul and Chassis Service Manuals are the ONLY ones to use. They have ALL the information to do almost anything except body adjustments.

 

The Chevrolet Service Manual is probably the best one that I've seen; the only thing I found it lacking was information on how much coolant the car needs (trying to do a radiator flush, and there's no documentation on how much the system holds, so I ended up having to ask several different forums for the answer of "approx. 5 gal" so that I could do the math for a 60/40 mix). And if that's all that's missing, that's a small thing.

Haynes manuals have ticked me off ever since I tried to follow their instructions for installing springs on a 2002 Saturn. They showed a picture of some schmuck with a socket on the end of a Macpherson strut turning it for all he was worth. The problem with this is that all you do is spin the shaft, rather than loosen up the top nut. The shocks actually require that you have a Torx bit and a box wrench; the bit holds the end of the shaft while you spin the box wrench to loosen up the top nut and disassemble the strut to install the springs.

My father, when he did a rebuild on a 302 for a Mustang, used a Haynes manual for it. He also found it lacking in instructions; when he tried to install the pistons, the instructions said, "Slide piston into engine." Didn't mention that you'd need a ring compressor or anything like that to get it in there, which seems to me a rather major thing.

Haynes may have come a ways and fixed these printings since, but seems to me that their quality control could be a lot better.