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Chilton's online manual


TimFX

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got to laugh, the fact it mentions a transfer case is enough to make me question its validity...I have never in my life and again, MY LIFE found a Chilton's of any real value, now if you were speaking of a Motors and ONLY if that Motors manual is of the correct era would I entertain buying a book that is NOT a reprint of the factory service manual.  Look for a reprint on E-bay or Amazon or other website of your choosing...I think you will be better served. 

Edited by Plymouthy Adams
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I guess a Chilton's is ok if you are working on modern crap and are already an experienced mechanic,but if you are,why would you need to buy a Chiltons?

Do yourself a favor and go to Amazon,abesbooks.com,ebay,etc,etc,etc,and look for a Motors Auto Repair Manual that covers your year car. While you are at it,look for a reprint or CD of a factory parts manual for your car.

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8 minutes ago, TimFX said:

Service manual it is then!

 

i have the parts catalogue tho

 

 

Service manuals from the factory are good and I do recommend them,but keep in mind they were written for experienced Mopar mechanics that worked at dealerships. They will tell you to do something,presuming you already know how and why to do it.

The Motors Auto Repair Manuals have sections that cover basic systems like the engine,transmission,electrical system,etc,etc,etc,and they presume you know next to nothing,so they provide a lot of photos and step by step directions written in plain language.

If you are wise,you will buy both a Motors Manual and a factory service manual. The price is so cheap you would be foolish to not do so.

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Chiltons is absolutely the worst IMO.

Get a factory manual.

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I just got my motors manual from Amazon today. I paid $55 plus $3 s&h. It is the Vintage car edition and covers 1935-1953. The book is original, in excellent condition and it used to be a library book. Still has the library tags on it.

 

Joe

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Chilton and a even some other brand factory manuals have a tendency to have entries like:

Transmission Service:

1. Disconnect Battery

2. Remove Transmission

3. Service Transmission

4. Reinstall Transmission

 

It always makes me laugh. Of course Factory manuals like that usually indicate there are separate service books for each component.

Edited by rcb
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I've got a Haynes manual for my 70 Chevy truck, if you adjust the valves per instructions they will close. I like how Motors manuals are written, good pics and instructions. I got mine at a flea market for 10bucks. I have it and a parts manual for a 53 Plymouth. The parts manual covers several things on my 46 and my sons 52 as some things did not change. It's best asset is the exploded diagrams or different views that the Motors manual might not have. They complement each other well I should say I guess.

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  My experience with Chilton’s is that they’re too generic. When specifics are required, it’s best to get a factory manual specific to the vehicle in question, or a generic manual that goes into greater detail than typical with Chilton’s.

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11 hours ago, rcb said:

Chilton and a even some other brand factory manuals have a tendency to have entries like:

Transmission Service:

1. Disconnect Battery

2. Remove Transmission

3. Service Transmission

4. Reinstall Transmission

 

It always makes me laugh. Of course Factory manuals like that usually indicate there are separate service books for each component.

I think the older Chilton's were better, but anyways I bought one when we got our first minivan, a 93 T&C.  The manual was like RCB said, sort of the 'black box theory', where you remove a component & toss it for a new one.  And it covered too many models, and didn't cover any of them well.  Most of the pictures didn't look like what our vehicle looked like.  The electrical diagrams were so small you couldn't read them, and they were also incomplete.  [It did help me once, though, when I was stranded in another state, and the shop I had the car taken to said he doesn't work on Japanese engines, and it was only after showing him in the Chilton's that the 3.3 was USA made (unlike the 3.0, which was in fact Japanese) that he consented to do the repair.  (It was a water pump R & R that I needed to have done.)]

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1 hour ago, Eneto-55 said:

  The electrical diagrams were so small you couldn't read them, and they were also incomplete.  

Yea I don't know how they expect you to sort those drawings out. I really like having a hard copy book when working on a car but when it comes to a wiring diagram I like my laptop with the touch screen so I can expand the drawing and separate them tiny lines.

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On 7/2/2017 at 11:52 AM, DonaldSmith said:

5.  Reconnect battery.

Ha! It's good to have an editor!

I remember reading my dad's Chilton manuals when I was young (don't ask me... I liked cars and seemed like interesting reading) and they were more like generalized knowledge. At lot their diagnostic procedures were sound and they did have good sections on using common tools, reading spark plugs and similar things.

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I'm been contemplating buying a shop manual for my 1954 265 engine.  Looking for rebuild specs and other motor related service details.

 What would be the best manual to have? Will the shop manual have this info?

im not using the motor  on a 1954 Chrysler so don't care much about the other car related chapters

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I've got several older Chilton's manuals for cars and trucks that we've had through the years, that I got at either book stores or auto parts shops (they're all about 30 years old now, don't remember just where I got them), a MoTors manual that covers our '37 Terraplane that I found at an antique shop in New Harmony, IN that is good enough that I haven't needed to buy a service manual for it, and a Haynes manual for my 2001 Dodge Ram.  I would concur that the MoTors is the best, but, they are all useful. You have to be mechanically inclined to use any of them, but more so the Chilton's and Haynes, I've noticed. 

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