Car & Motorcycle Manuals etc.

1989 to 1997, Haynes number 3238, Haynes Publishing (Yeovil, Somerset) 1999

26.9 x 19.8 cm, 660g, ISBN 1 85960 238 X

Haynes manuals are something of an institution, and all describe a strip-down and rebuild of a new bike. The procedures to carry out a particular task (for example the replacement of the rear brake caliper) 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. 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 late 1990s, 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 Suzuki GS500E Twin is still in print in paperback at £18.74.