opinion of clymer manuals-gctid374321

[Guest]

Hi looking for a workshop manual for a 5.0l 2455 2001 and found a link to clymer stern drive manuals and wondered what your opinions are of it or recommendations of anything else

Thanks

Robert

[2850Bounty]

Both the Clymers and Seloc are known for a few occasional errors. Photos are usually very nice.

Most will recommend that you use the OEM work shop manuals, and I would agree!

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[MidnightSun]

Why would you need to lay out your hard earned cash for a manual? You can get free advice and pretty pictures right here through Rick.

[Guest]

Personally, I'm not a fan of either Seloc or Clymer manuals. I think Haynes are the best of the aftermarket books. YMMV.

The OEM's maintenance manuals are certainly good quality and have fewest errors, but they're also written for trained, experienced mechanics. They often rely on specialty tools and equipment, ideal shop conditions, and they assume you already know all the basics.

Often, the Haynes manual will give you a work-around so standard tools will suffice, or tell you how to modify/fabricate a tool. And they assume you know very little. For the average shade tree mechanic, this can be much better than a factory service manual.

One exception to the above - winterizing. Many aftermarket manuals will offer shortcuts and alternative strategies. Sometimes these will work fine. Sometimes not. If you ignore the factory's advice on draining/winterizing, you do so at your own peril.

[Guest]

I can't comment on Seloc, never having owned one, but I'm not impressed with any of the Clymer or Haynes manuals that I own. They both seem to have a high percentage of generic "fluff" and are lacking in detail. Better than nothing, but not much. If a factory manual is available it's worth buying whatever the cost, but the cost can be pretty high.

[2850Bounty]

MidnightSun wrote:
Why would you need to lay out your hard earned cash for a manual? You can get free advice and pretty pictures right here through Rick.

Disclaimer.... I get all of my photos from Hans! :kidding

Truth is, you can find quite a few online OEM information sources....... and some OEM work shop manuals in PDF format.

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