Car & Motorcycle Manuals etc.

1996 to 2003, Haynes number 3702, Haynes Publishing (Yeovil, Somerset) 2006

26.9 x 19.8 cm, 740g, ISBN 1 84425 152 7

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 early 2000s, 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 Yamaha YZF600R Thundercat & FZS600 Fazer is still in print in hardback at £18.74.