Car & Motorcycle Manuals etc.

214: Oct 1989 to Mar 1996 (G to N reg.) Petrol; 414: Mar 1990 to 1995 (G to N reg.) Petrol, Haynes number 1689, Haynes Publishing (Yeovil, Somerset) 1999

26.9 x 19.8 cm, 750g, ISBN 1 85960 458 7

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. Each task is graded according to its difficulty, from one spanner for easy to five spanners for a task which should really have been given to your local specialist garage, but which you can try if you are feeling brave. Each manual has a section on fault finding, a glossary of technical terms and an index. See the description below from the book’s rear cover.

Each volume is bound in glazed pictorial boards, and is printed on paper which shows a tendency to brown at the edges. Also 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.This particular manual has clearly had a good deal of wear, and has slight damage to the top and bottom of the spine and has been dropped on the rear bottom corner. However, the binding is still sound and the book is perfectly usable.

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 Rover 214 & 414 is now out of print.