What I hate about factory service manuals ...

dibbons said

a) They start off almost every paragraph with "using special tool #@#$% ... I don't have these special tools.

b) No specifications for real blueprinting ... can't find nominal block deck height, piston pin height, piston dome volume, piston deck height, piston to valve clearance, combustion chamber volume, ............

Click to expand...

Sorry, I have no sympathy for you at all. You are living in an age, where, at the touch of a computer, the very one which created this thread, allows you access to world-wide sources of information and products, both good and bad.

In the years when I didn't HAVE a muscle car, there WAS no internet. You depended on word of mouth from friends, which was often pure bullshit. You relied on Hot Rod magazine and their other ilk, which was ALSO often not completely accurate.

If you wanted a factory manual, you had to go to the dealer and convince the surely, uncooperative parts guy to order one. Book on engines, transmissions? How did you find out about THEM? There was no internet. If it wasn't advertised in a car rag, you would never hear about it. Your information was directly proportional to the size of the "urban" area in which you lived. Here, "out in the sticks" things, tools, parts, and information was very difficult to pry loose.