Every time I have something on a CD I print it out on paper to keep the computer away from all the dust, dirt, and grease so I vote for the book. Many wiring schematics are on CD's anymore.
I was just wondering if they was set up like a database? put in the part number and it will tell you what it is.
Ha ha I'm afraid these ol trucks are ol skool, you gotta wipe your hands clean, grab a coffee (or your favourite beverage) and sit down for five to thumb through some pages to find out what you need to know, once you buy the manuals you will find you rely on them for so many little things, it's all part of the fun, it's another way that these ol trucks slow down your pace of life and make you enjoy working on them, you can't rush things you know
Manuals Most of the manuals are here to find. They should be posseble to copy on a cd/dvd disc . But printing them is even better i think. http://chevy.oldcarmanualproject.com/ http://www.oldcarmanualproject.com/
Maybe It's just because I'm a geezer but ; I find having the factory shop manual , owner's booklet and original assembly manual , in that order , is way more helpful than any CD thing could ever be . As these books are available cheaply brandy new reproduction , it's no big deal to get a few dog eared pages or to write service notes in the margins.... If you do go the CD route , just print out " Cheat Sheets " before each job and lay them on the running board where you'll step on and crinkle them or spill oil / coffee / blood on them , or the dog can sklopper / chew them up for you ........... Somewheres I have an uber rare , once incredibly valuable 1959 Honda Moto shop manual , the original owner apparently olny used it once , to do clutch service and he placed oily clutch discs on the open manual forever ruining it but also making it interesting to look at...... The rest of the book was of course , *pristine* . You cannot have too many books , just remember to READ THEM .
The short answer is no. All of the manuals on CD that I have seen are just optical scans of the pages in the manuals with no search capability.
If they are in PDF format... If they are in PDF format they are most likely capable of at least having a 'FIND' option. It may not be ideal, but you could still perform a basic search - better than thumbing through page after page - if you are like me, you will notice something else you always wanted to know, but had forgotten about, then that leads to something else, and then something else. Before you know it, an hour or two have gone by and you have forgotten all about what you originally picked that book up for. Now what the heck was I doing before i started talking about......
PDF files are only searchable if they were generated from text. The manuals I've seen as PDF files were just scanned as page images without running them through any kind of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. Using OCR software is time consuming and typically generates a ton of errors that takes a real person a lot of time to correct. And when you are scanning things like lists of part numbers that person may not know that the part number that the OCR software converted to 1883123 was actually 1988128. Here is an example taken from a .PDF file that is just an optical page scan. http://www.pontiacsafari.com/MPC/Pages/page_0067-93_Group00.pdf Search will not find any of the text.
My Point ! See now ~ if you take the time to do this page by page looking thing , you'll find out all manner of useful information . Of course , I'm crazy so I read each and every old Shop Manual I get (thousands) before I put it on the shelf for future reference....
Very good Points! Bill - VERY good point! I will bet you are right that these manuals on CD are just images since they are over 60 years old. I never thought of that. There is a guy on ebay that sells these, so i sent him a question to see if they are searchable. I will let you know if he responds because i have always been interested in manuals on CD but are pretty much useless if you can't search - except if you want to print your own copy from it. Nate - unfortunately, if i were to read all that material, i would NEVER retain enough of it to make a difference. my old brain just does not absorb like it used to. For those of you that have the time and can retain, then i certainly envy you.
Very good thinking Nate. Collecting manuals is one thing, reading all of them is another issue and i do respect the people whom are taking there time for that kind of activity reading i mean. It keeps up the grey cells like the belgium detective Hercule Poirot said but it is great relaxsation to. But i must admit that i love data- text and pics. , so easy and the possebillety to find allmost everything on the internet. Like fore instance this picture off my great grandfather i found on the internet ocasionally !! The state border police (my great grandfather) is standing to the right in the picture , he is watching the first official electric tram in route in the south of Holland, the city of Vaals in the Netherlands. I love the internet.
Info Retention You'll be surprised at what pops out of the dim recesses when you're up close and personal with it.....
