Haynes WTF

Good old haynes informs me in great detail and pics how to disconect the battery but when it come's to something a little more involved it's no frickin help what so ever..!!!
I'm trying to pull the engine out my donor car (a4 aeb) and in the process of splitting the gearbox and now it's a case of taking out bolts till the gearbox lands on my face..!!    
I'v noticed this lack of dicription several times… is it written by a man with a bullet point list in front of him and no experience.??  plus i don't know what a such and such look's like thats why am reading you, where's a diagram to give me a clue…??

My Gripe of the day, Shaun :-D

I find haynes manuals are not the most user friendly.  :dontknow:

Gearbox on your face tho… Winner!!  :mrgreen:

Don't worry the gearbox won't simply fall off if the bolts are undone, it will still be supported on the input shaft. For this reason its not a good idea to simply remove the bolts and then try yank it off. Try to at least get a jack under there so it can come off in a straight line. After all, you'll be putting it back on in a similar position, right?

An alternate way if the trolley jack is a bit awkward, is to drop the gearbox onto an old car tyre. Then its easy to slide it out under the engine bay.

gotta love the haynes, how the hell i ever used to use em is beyond me nowadays,  Shaun you missed the one vital piece of info from haynes, refitting is a reversal of removel (except the swearing is in a different order)

chris

I was swearing at the Haynes manual too, just this afternoon.  My favourite bit was the diagram of the air intake system that had an arrow labelled 'auxiliary air valve' pointing at the inlet manifold.  You're supposed to guess that it means it's behind the inlet manifold   Manual was, as usual, as much help with fault diagnosis/fixing as a marshmallow spanner.

Did they even make a haynes for the cabby?

pugzadams said

Did they even make a haynes for the cabby?

Ive never seen one for the cabby, always muddled through with the tintop one (on loan from library  )

chris

I'v sussed it…. Haynes is in partnership with manufacturers to not give vital information out, resulting in payment of a book then having to take it to the garage anywayz
My mk1 golf, jetta, scirocco haynes has info in for the cabby, but it only goes up to 1984 i believe the cabby's run on longer.? maybe some info in mk2 haynes.??

I've had that problem before, when changing my camshaft Haynes said "Remove the timing belt pulley"

this resulted in 45 minutes of trying to stop the cam from turning - but Manuel never tells us how …

hi

the haynes manual was the internet of the 80s & 90s , kept a lot of mk1s on the road on limited budgets

baz