Restoration Tip – Get the Factory Manuals

Using the correct repair guides for your specific car can help you to diagnose problems and also help you to restore it in the correct manner. This can save you many hours of work and a lot of money too. You’ll need the right Service Manual, Assembly Manual, Fisher Body Manual, and Chassis Service Manual for your particular vehicle, and thankfully most are still available today as GM licensed reprints of the original books.

The Assembly manual is valuable because it lists every part by part number, and also lists every option that was offered for your specific vehicle. The Assembly manual also contains many useful exploded part diagrams and lists the torque values for all of the fasteners on the car. The Service manual will list the specific tools you’ll need by their GM part numbers and it will also tell you how to remove and replace all of the parts that normally wear out. The Service manual will tell you how to work on big parts like the motor, transmission and the rear end, and it will also cover many of the smaller parts like the steering column and the alternator as well. The Service manual will also contain valuable trouble shooting tips to help you diagnose problems with the brakes, ignition, electrical, cooling, air conditioning and suspension parts too.

The Chassis Service manual will cover your car’s front and rear suspension as well as detail all of the specs needed to align the front end. The Chassis Service manual will show you how to remove and replace nearly every part on the car that is connected to the frame except the gas tank and fuel lines. This info will allow you to rebuild your front end, replace the tie rod ends and ball joints, and explain how to rebuild your steering gear box too. The Fisher Body Repair manual contains everything you need to know about all of the body sheet metal and chrome trim, and also details how all of the interior parts are removed and replaced.

These valuable books can be found packaged together as complete Restoration Information Kits, or purchased separately as individual manuals from OPGI in the “Books and Manuals” section of the Restoration Parts Catalog for your specific GM vehicle.