Car & Motorcycle Manuals etc.

1961 to 1979 (All models), Haynes number 072, Haynes Publishing (Yeovil, Somerset) 1981

26.9 x 19.8 cm, 790g, ISBN 0 85696 509 X

Haynes manuals are something of an institution, and all describe a strip-down and rebuild of a new vehicle. The procedures to carry out a particular task (for example the replacement of the steering ball-joints) are fully described, with descriptive photographs or line-drawings, including exploded views where necessary. Several of the sections have fault finding charts, and there is an appendix on special tools required, and an index. See the description below from the book’s rear cover.

Each volume is bound in glazed pictorial boards.  This volume was printed in the early 1980s, and uses better-quality paper than the later Haynes manuals, where the pages brown at the edges.  However, please bear in mind that these are secondhand copies, and may well have the odd oily thumb-print on the page you are looking at.

Haynes are to be congratulated for keeping so many of these manuals in print, but most of the manuals still in print are only available in a paperback edition, which is rather less durable than the wipe-clean cover of the original hardback edition. This particular manual for the Renault 4 is still in print in paperback at £18.75.