The grumpy thread

[Lacquer Peel]

Blingo's gearbag may be on the way out. ARSEBISCUITS.

 

Was the 8v 2.0HDi ever available with an autobox?

In the facelift Xsara.

What makes you think the gearbox is on the way out? They're usually strong and long lasting.

[Pillock]

Someone I have an urgent desire to tell to FRO was in town before earlier and missed my chance.

Ages since I've seen Giles Brandreth.

[Tamworthbay]

Ages since I've seen Giles Brandreth.

I was kind of hoping he done the decent thing and died.

[chaseracer]

In the facelift Xsara.

What makes you think the gearbox is on the way out? They're usually strong and long lasting.

 

True, and it'll probably go many more thousands of miles making this noise!  Tame Mechanic thinks it's the final drive/diff thingy.

 

Thanks for the heads-up on the Xsara.

[HillmanImp]

Been fecking about doing real life shit all day. Finally get to go out and work on the car and it starts pissing down.

[robinmasters]

Just been to Halfords (as if that in itself isn't bad enough, but that's my own fault), and Haynes manuals no longer have hard covers. What is the world coming to?

[scaryoldcortina]

I have a Haynes manual so old it isn't even called a Haynes manual (Austin Healey sprite and MG midget by JH Haynes) and that's soft covered.

[HillmanImp]

Been fecking about doing real life shit all day. Finally get to go out and work on the car and it starts pissing down.

It stopped raining so I went out again.

 

Then it started raining again.

 

I don't know why I'm surprised, it is April after all.

[HillmanImp]

Just been to Halfords (as if that in itself isn't bad enough, but that's my own fault), and Haynes manuals no longer have hard covers. What is the world coming to?

My 944 Haynes manual that came with the car is a paperback. I did think that was odd.

[The Moog]

It stopped raining so I went out again.

 

Then it started raining again.

 

I don't know why I'm surprised, it is April after all.

Flipping freezing today working in cars. Save it for a better day

[Shirley Knott]

My 944 Haynes manual that came with the car is a paperback. I did think that was odd.

 

My 940 manual is paperback too, and about 8mm thick. I've got a copy of the Citroen C1 manual, also paperback and thinner again.

 

Haynes have been trading on former glory for many years now IMO.

[SiC]

I suspect the Haynes Motor Museum makes more money than the books now. Even the section for the books in the shop is only a small section. The tat sections in the shop was a good 6x larger.

[Jerzy Woking]

Flipping freezing today working in cars. Save it for a better day

It was too hot here today to do a few jobs on the van.

 

More cause for your grump Snagglepuss.

[scaryoldcortina]

I suspect the Haynes Motor Museum makes more money than the books now. Even the section for the books in the shop is only a small section. The tat sections in the shop was a good 6x larger.

I think all the starship enterprise/zombie survival etc jokey manuals probably outsell the car ones.

[HillmanImp]

Flipping freezing today working in cars. Save it for a better day

I've got to get the GT6 working properly in the slim possibility that whoever wins it on ebay actually makes contact at the end of the auction and doesn't just vanish into thin air.

[brownnova]

Drive it day and my most classic car is in the garage having MoT work done....

 

Grrr

[MikeR]

Gutted .. Stair rod rain last night .. And a guy working late on a job nearby ...

 

Had to cancel our woodland romp .... ????

[Tamworthbay]

I think all the starship enterprise/zombie survival etc jokey manuals probably outsell the car ones.

Yup but to be fair most manuals for moderns would just have one page that says ‘plug in computer at main dealer’. I can’t see anyone swapping out the engine on a Mitsubishi PHEV on their drive with a Haynes manual and a Draper socket set.

[scaryoldcortina]

Honestly though, even Haynes manuals of yore only had a couple of useful bits, the torque settings and contact breaker gaps mostly. Did anyone actually try to follow the dismantling instructions?

[Tamworthbay]

Honestly though, even Haynes manuals of yore only had a couple of useful bits, the torque settings and contact breaker gaps mostly. Did anyone actually try to follow the dismantling instructions?

They saved me a load of times when I was a teenager with capris, minis and escorts. A lot of stuff is straightforward but things like timing up a cambelt for the first time was made a lot easier by the manuals. I still try to get them for cars I have as I am sad and like to look through the pics.

[Pillock]

I don't think I've ever got all the way through a Haynes step by step disassembly before realising that their car was different to mine and I just started winging it.

[scaryoldcortina]

There is a reason for that too.

 

 

Here's the very first Haynes manual, Mr H stripped and rebuilt a midget and wrote about it incorporating pictures and diagrams from the BMC and Autocar. This was presumably quite hard going because his next few books were for everything else ever fitted with an a series and mostly a cut and paste from the MG book.

[twosmoke300]

I’m sure one of the early bx hbol shows the battery tray being unbolted to aid gearbox removal . Never seen a bx one that wasn’t welded on so I guess they had a pre production model for the manual . Helpful

[anonymous user]

Today's grump is people who lack spatial awareness who then drive large cars. I was stuck in a queue of traffic today because someone was too scared to drive through a gap that you could get a bus through (I know this because the bus was a couple of vehicles in front and went through fine). I later experienced the person who thought their car, or mine, was narrower than it is as they passed me on the M4 and clipped my door mirror.

[HMC]

Yeah Haynes is seemingly majoring in being a brand angled to people with a passing awareness of its bread and butter, with products aimed at semi jokey gifts for men. I think the internet is a factor as I haven’t got a Haynes for the avensis, and if I have a fault I will google it and doubtless have someone breathing heavily on you tube showing me how to fix it.

[HMC]

The stereo wasn’t working on the avensis, or rather there was no speaker output. Now I doubt there’s very much in a HBOL to help anyway. So there I go on google with the model number. Could be this, could be that. Being a lazy I just thumped it and it now works. This should be not be on the grump thread, just included as it happened today and no Haynes was thumbed, but google was.

[Sigmund Fraud]

Another reason for the ever-decreasing popularity of Haynes manuals is that most manufacturers' workshop manuals are so widely available nowadays !

 

[SiC]

I think all the starship enterprise/zombie survival etc jokey manuals probably outsell the car ones.

Certainly there was as much shelf space dedicated to the jokey ones as the proper ones in the Haynes museum shop.

 

The old Haynes are pretty good I reckon. I like to read through to get a rough good idea on what a job entails.

 

Just I find the modern stuff always seems pretty generic instructions. Often even with pictures of the job of a completely different car marque.

[dozeydustman]

Certainly there was as much shelf space dedicated to the jokey ones as the proper ones in the Haynes museum shop.

 

The old Haynes are pretty good I reckon. I like to read through to get a rough good idea on what a job entails.

 

Just I find the modern stuff always seems pretty generic instructions. Often even with pictures of the job of a completely different car marque.

 

I got to agree with you there. I still have my Samba, Horizon and 205 manuals somewhere, they have full wiring diagrams, plenty of clear & well labelled pictures/diagrams and the text goes into much better detail. There were good cutaway diagrams of the engines showing oilways and coolant passages.

 

The ones I have for the Saab and the Corolla have very little detail for certain things, bits of garbled text where a picture would really be useful, and 'typical' schematics which may or may not incorporate optional extras.

 

"Refitting is reverse of removal" seems to have been there from year dot though.

[wuvvum]

I have occasionally found HBOLs to be useful when working on older tat to show how things should go.  Case in point, when I was doing the rear brake shoes on the 205, the old ones were being awkward to get out and when they did finally come away the springs all went flying everywhere.  It was a lot easier to look at the diagram in the HBOL to see what went where than to sit there trying to work it out for myself.