Any vehicle year specific?

 

I obtain several different publishers' manuals for each of my cars when possible. I would suggest starting with GM shop/service manuals as they are the best for GM cars and used by GM techs. The vast majority of car producer manuals are published by Helm, Inc. They are of course written by car manufacturers.

 

I concur with Jud above. I would strongly suggest you stay with an official GM Factory Service Manual from Helm Publishing. I also have a Assembly Instruction Manual for my 1968 C3 as it shows what goes where during installation and assembly of the Corvette. I don't know when they stopped selling the AIM's as I could only get a set of FSM for my 1988 C4.

I have been building engines for forty some years and the only time I had a problem was when I used a Chilton's manual. The manuals made for several models are not to handy.

Try looking at Rockauto under the year of your Corvette and check the literature listing. RA sells DVD's with the entire FSM on them for less than $20 in some cases. They might even have one for your newer Corvette as the later Corvettes manuals are expensive. For my 1988 they were $100 a set and they are awesome manuals. The electrical book is worth it's price alone as it has all the troubleshooting for the entire Electrical system.

 

Copy that with the AIM recommendation and the GM manuals

The Haynes Manuals are worthless....my opinion.

 

Another vote for gen. GM manuals

 

I agree that the Shop Manual is the best.....but that is not saying much. They all, (Chiltons are the worst) are very non-specific....trying to write a manual to cover mutliple car options, so be very careful when you read something that it is SPECIFICALLY about the particular car part you are working on. It is very easy to misread something thinking its about what you are working on when the writer was writing about another configuration and did not make good specific written details . Writing is a very difficult thing to do correctly, and being very specific takes a talent I don't think alot of shop manual writers are good at. It could also be the manufacturers were not interested in covering every single option on every single car. I think they relied on experience of experienced mechanics to work on the cars.

Not proclaiming to be an expert, but I wrote military tech manuals on GE aircraft engines for about four years. It was amazing how difficult it was to write clear procedures. Many of my coworkers clearly failed and the procedures had to be changed. The process included two seperate hands on tests of the procedures, first internally at the GE plant on a real engine by real people, and all the corrections made.....followed by a second verification process of reading those edited procedures by military mechanics on a real engine. It was a long process and lots of editing required.

I have also used aircraft maintenance manuals for years.......for the most part they make car shop manuals look like a joke. So bottom line....whatever car manual you use, make sure what they are telling you makes sense.

 

Are all of these required, No...
Over the years I have acquired most of the GM manuals for my 1977...
IMO order of importance.
1.Owners Manual
2.Green Cover Service Manual
3.Assembly Manual
4.Electrical Troubleshooting Manual

 

Looks like you are covered. As mentioned above, forget Chilton...

 

Don't forget to start collecting catalogs from the various venders. Some of them show clear and concise diagrams of components and subcomponents. Jerry

 

Frankly, I don't think there is any ONE magic bullet shop manual that fits everyone's requirements. Rather, it's better to have multiple to choose from. I also have been collecting them over the years, but did buy some of my books in bulk some time back. Got a great deal on a bunch of them together, so be on the lookout for multiple books in a single purchase as you generally get a better deal.... however, you can buy many of these individually on eBay. I don't have a 76 Corvette, but I got some pretty nifty books for the '76 model year in the lot, and they have still proven useful for my '69.

There have been circumstances where I'll read the text from the shop manual, but consult the Haynes or Chilton's for a better diagram/picture, and visa-versa.

The Chilton's and Haynes' books are decent, but the Corvette Shop manual I find to be the best- again, noting that there are times where you may find using them together to cross-reference is handy. Typically, if you can't find the level of info or ideal pics/diagrams that you need in one book, you'll find it in another.

Another way of looking at it is that I consider the Haynes and Chilton's manuals to be 'supplements' to the shop manual. That's why it's good to have multiple manuals to cover yourself. Here are some of the ones I have....



Pretty good...


My Favorite, and the best of the lot, IMO...


Pretty good.... I've had this one the longest, and I have used it for various repairs on my 70 and 71 verts, and still use it to this day for my '69 vert which I'm doing a frame off resto on. It never really provided all the info I was looking for but it did the job - it's far more useful now when cross-referencing with the shop manual and other publications, though...


Really handy for pesky vacuum-related issues...


Pretty good...


Although for '76 model year, is very handy and a fair amount of it can apply to other years as well. Has extremely detailed info on the parts (not a repair manual) with lots of diagrams. You could virtually BUILD a Corvette with this manual.


Very detailed wiring schematic. Should be able to apply to other years as well, obviously noting any year to year differences...


Although Corvette has to share this book with other GM models, I like the detailed frame and frame alignment detail. Sadly, I didn't notice the frame details until after I replaced my frame, lined it up, and shimmed it. But oddly enough, I did it correctly!


Not a repair manual by any means, but an excellent guide intended more for NCRS restorations. Shows you options for each year, and goes into quite a bit of detail on stuff we take for granted, or didn't even know.... All the stuff that NCRS judges would look at while judging... Also helps to weed out fakes/clones of special models, so it serves a secondary purpose as a 'buyers guide'.

...and of course, the immense amount of hands on knowledge you get from folks on this forum rounds it all out! In some ways, you could consider our forum yet another shop manual, but specific to the issue you are trying to resolve, an enhancement you want to make, or maybe just some fun general/non-technical facts that you are interested in that are not easily found elsewhere.

Arguably (by some), the forum is the most valuable informational asset of all at your finger tips. Other forum members have helped me with stuff that you just can't (clearly) drum up in a shop manual. A well-rounded assortment of information from reliable sources is the key to success, IMO. Not just one source....