By Jeff Glucker
Haynes shows you how. That’s the tagline for the long running automotive DIY manual. If you have an older car and want to do your own repairs, there’s a very good chance you’ve got a Haynes Manual stuffed away somewhere. John Harold Haynes published his first manual back in 1966. According to the Haynes website and Facebook page, John Haynes has passed away at the age of 80, after a short illness.
If you want to know a bit more about the man behind the manuals, you should head to the Haynes website to read his obituary. In short, he’s lived an interesting life with time spent in the Royal Air Force before branching out into the world of publishing. In fact, John was given an OBE for his role as a publishers.
If you’re wrenching on your car sometime in the next few days, and you’re doing so with a dog-eared copy of a Haynes Manual. Grab a beer, and give a salute to the man who helped millions of automotive enthusiasts keep their rides on the road.
Kamil Kaluski
The Haynes Museum in Somerset is well worth a visit, some very interesting stuff in there from the red sports car room of about 50 cars to a pairing of Duesenberg and Cadillac V16 and even Mr Haynes’ former family truckster, a gigantic 1979 Country Squire wagon which must have been ‘fun’ to squeeze around the tiny roads of the UK.
I ordered a Haynes for the DRZ400 and was stunned when it showed up in hardcover! Never saw such a thing in all my years.
This book made me a better bad mechanic…
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Rest in Peace, Mr. Haynes, after you disconnect the battery, of course.
There was used book store 2 blocks from work back in the 89’s. The had a great automotive section with lots of Haynes manuals cheap. I picked up quite a few just to read – MGs, Fiats, Jaguars -cars I might never own. Some of the instructions could be a little dubious…”Remove and replace windshield wiper motor”.
‘Replacement is the opposite of removal’
That is my experience, too. When trying to work by Haynes manual, sentences like that have often made me stop up. That is not to diminish the man’s memory, but I don’t have the best associations to working with them.
He branched out from merely transport as well. ‘Every manual based on a stripdown and rebuild’
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I’ve been working on my cars for nine years and only bought a Haynes manual a few months ago. what was I waiting for?! I removed the engine from my car just by doing exactly what the book said. even though I’d never pulled a motor from a car in my life, I had it out in maybe twelve hours of work. it’s guided me through all kinds of absurd jobs, all the way down to photographic instructions for rebuilding the exact CV joint in my car. can’t believe I’ve gone this long without it.
Not just cars. And not just real things.
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Always used the ” Motors ” Auto repair manuals in the shop.
This manual is my personal favorite. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8729f7c348e445d049fb4fa76854022d21e79a899ccbf29152093425bd661d3d.jpg
I wasn’t aware that these books and the publishing agency were so closely tied to the person – I was suspecting some entrepreneur/publisher who found a niche, but he basically developed this niche himself. Now I wonder if he and Clark Fletcher (https://www.clarks-garage.com/) would have gotten along well – both were substantial for my wrench empowerment.
I have the exact book he is holding! I took it to Kikos and had it spiral bound so it lays flat while I’m working.
Thank you Mr. Haynes.
Rest in slack brother. I hope his funeral is Haynes themed like Factory Records founder Tony Wilson’s funeral which used the last two Factory catalog numbers.
I had that copy for the MGB, all used, tattered and greasy. Good stuff.
Hello. We just created this account specifically so we could pop in here and thank you all for the tribute and kind words in the comment section. We are sure that John Haynes never imagined what he was starting when he took apart that first Sprite and wrote the manual for it. We are still taking apart cars/trucks/motorcycles and writing books to help you fix them, the same way John did it way back in the 1950s, with shops in the UK and California. We branched out years ago into other sorts of books as well, as exemplified by the Marriage Manual, and airplane books below. We love to see greasy and well used copies of our books, and hear your stories about them, so feel free to post pictures here or tag us on other social media with #MyHaynes
Very late but one I have had good use of https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/727dc7dfbc4328bd5b18b7400688b2dd291a9ceb64159ffe89f69d6750779c2c.jpg