This is sooo true

[guyinnadress]

Haynes Manual

For anyone who has ever tried to use a Haynes manual to work on their car…

Haynes: rotate anticlockwise
Translation: clamp with mole grips and beat repeatedly with a hammer anticlockwise

Haynes: this is a snug fit
Translation: you will skin your knuckles

Haynes: this is a tight fit
Translation: not a hope in hell matey

Haynes: as described in chapter 7
Translation: that’ll teach you not to read through before you start, now you are looking at scary photos of the inside of a gearbox

Haynes: pry…
Translation: hammer into…

Haynes: undo…
Translation: go buy a tin of WD40 (catering size)

Haynes: retain tiny spring
Translation: ‘jeez what was that, it nearly had my eye out

Haynes: press and rotate to remove bulb
Translation: OK, that’s the glass bit off, now fetch some good pliers to dig out the bayonet part

Haynes: lightly…
Translation: start off lightly and build up until the veins in your head are throbbing then recheck the manual because this cannot be ‘lightly’ what you are doing now

Haynes: weekly checks
Translation: if it ain’t broke don’t fix it

Haynes: routine maintenance
Translation: if it ain’t broke… it soon will be

Haynes: one spanner rating
Translation: your mum could do this… so how come you managed to botch it up?

Haynes: two spanner rating
Translation: now you may think you can do this because two is a low, tiny ikkle number… but you also thought the wiring diagram was a map of the Tokyo underground (in fact that would have been more use to you)

Haynes: three spanner rating
Translation: but Novas are easy to maintain right… right? So you think three Nova spanners has got to be like a ‘regular car’ two spanner job

Haynes: four spanner rating
Translation: you are seriously considering this aren’t you, you pleb!

Haynes: five spanner rating
Translation: OK, but don’t expect us to ride in it afterwards

Haynes: if not, you can fabricate your own special tool like this…
Translation: hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!

Haynes: compress
Translation: squeeze with all your might, jump up and down on, swear at, throw at the garage wall, then search in the dark corner of the garage for whilst muttering bugger repeatedly under your breath

Haynes: inspect
Translation: squint at really hard and pretend you know what you are looking at, then declare in a loud, knowing voice to your wife ‘Yep, as I thought, its going to need a new one’

Haynes: carefully
Translation: you are about to cut yourself

Haynes: retaining nut
Translation: yes that’s it, that big, spherical blob of rust

Haynes: get an assistant
Translation: you are about to humiliate yourself in front of someone you know

Haynes: turning the engine will be easier with the spark plugs removed
Translation: however, starting the engine afterwards will be much harder. Once that sinking, pit of your stomach feeling has subsided, you can start to feel deeply ashamed as you gingerly refit the spark plugs

Haynes: refitting is the reverse sequence to removal
Translation: but you swear in different places

Haynes: prise away plastic locating pegs
Translation: snap off

Haynes: using a suitable drift
Translation: the biggest nail in your toolbox isn’t a suitable drift!

Haynes: everyday toolkit
Translation: ensure you have an RAC card and a mobile phone

Haynes: apply moderate heat
Translation: placing your mouth near it and huffing is not moderate heat

Haynes: index
Translation: list of all the things in the book, bar the thing you want to do

For added Haynes fun:
Go to the first section, safety first and read the bit about hydroflouric acid, do you really want the advice of a book that uses this form of understatement?

Now look at the lovely colour section on body repairs. As you look at these pages say to yourself over and over until it sinks in…
‘mine will never look like that’

flick to the end and look at the colour spark plug pictures. How do these compare to the spark plugs in your MX5? If you cannot locate the spark plugs in you MX5, see the final translation above.

NB: Haynes Manuals are (c)opyright of a very disturbed sadist.

[Sarongman]

It sure is true and I especially concur with the description of the wiring diagram. Even a simple Massey Ferguson tractor diagram looks daunting and needs some serious study (at least in my case) and a modern car---welll!!!

[skirted_in_SF]

It sure is true and I especially concur with the description of the wiring diagram. Even a simple Massey Ferguson tractor diagram looks daunting and needs some serious study (at least in my case) and a modern car---welll!!!

I had a 1974 Opel Manta and got the factory manual as a reference. I could make out enough from the wiring diagram to wire in a pair of driving lights. But that may have been luck, I'm color-blind and can have problems telling some greens from yellows or browns.
I can barely find the engine on my newish Mazda.

[Kirbstone]

In a previous incarnation I had built a garage with an illuminated pit for servicing both our cars, then British Triumphs.

I manfully set aabout carrying out several servicing jobs using the best manuals of the type, but almost invariably ran into the place where it says for this job you need to use such and such a 'special tool', so after a trip to our local main dealer with a Vitesse rear half-shaft in my hand I abandoned all attempts at major servicing.

Since then I have been through a succession of 'foreign' makes e.g. Peugeot, Citroen, Audi and now Merc. Beyond replacing a windscreen wiper or light bulb I leave all oily work to the experts.

T.

[rick401r]

That's why I always use the Chilton's manuals. (not much better, reallly)

[the_scott_meister]

Is there a difference between the UK and the US versions of the Haynes manuals? I swear, I must have read all of mine backwards and forwards and I've never ran into "spanner" or "drift" before. But your UK translation makes much more sense then their Haynesese.

I must have missed the bit about the hydroflouric acid. I hope my Durango doesn't have any of that. It's got to be one of the nastiest substances ever invented by man. I'd rather drink a gallon of DDT than encounter one drop of HF.

[r.m.anderson]

What-s-matter you no like the multi-purpose adjustable speed wrench (spanner) AKA Crescent wrench.
The perfect tool to swear by with and every other functional oath uttered by man !

"Not-A-Skirted-Matter"
rma