Newb Reference Material - was: RE: <VV> Engine ID

[Chris & Bill Strickland]

The thing to remember is perspective -- yes, all these books are great, 
but How On Earth did we ever manage to work on Corvairs before these 
books were written -- well, they are like a lot of other cars,  four 
cycle internal combustion, overhead valve, gasoline fueled, spark 
ignition, suck, squeeze, bang, phooey!  The school of hard knocks was a 
pretty good teacher -- some mistakes got made, but that is why people 
wrote books

If one had a few specs and some mechanical common sense, it really 
wasn't too hard.  Perhaps that is why the Finch and Fisher books have 
the reputation they do -- for a lot of people, they were their first 
Corvair books, even before the shop manuals!  And if you had a shop 
manual, it was probably a year or two out of date anyway ...

So, while the books are nice, if one has a bit of automotive common 
sense, they are not truly necessary if one has to choose between a book 
and a rod bearing, take the bearing!  You can't get a bearing from the 
library!

Bill S