quote Originally posted by Patrick: I think a lot of it has to do with how people today are accessing the internet. I suspect many have discarded/retired their PCs and are now attempting to do all online tasks through the use of their "smart" phones. It must make for a painful experience to try and navigate an online forum using a phone. I sure as heck couldn't do it. I'd go blind trying to see everything on such a puny screen, and typing any kind of coherent response without a proper keyboard would be next to impossible.

Agreed.
On the FB pages, you can see many replies to anyone's question are "one-liners" which are fine for yes/no type questions.

But someone asking what's involved in changing a water pump is often more confused by the litany of "half answers".
I'm still surprised so many people are too cheap to buy a $20 Haynes manual and working completely in the dark.


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[This message has been edited by fierosound (edited 04-28-2021).]

quote Originally posted by fierosound: I'm still surprised so many people are too cheap to buy a $20 Haynes manual and working completely in the dark. .

Agreed. What's unfortunate and frustrating is how incomplete the documentation is for our Fieros. None that I have seen provide the kind of detail to answer what I'm asking here. I own a Haynes manual. I also have the Pontiac Factory service manual. Neither show this sort of important, model-specific detail. The majority of these manuals' content is in fact devoted to things that are not so much model specific as they are common across many similar cars: beaucoup info on how to service the engine internals, for instance. So much of that is common across not just other models that have the same exact power plant (in which case the details would essentially be EXACTLY the same), but are also common in theory and practice with many, many, similar power plants (and therefore readily transferable to the specific case). I don't need a manual to instruct me on how to insert piston rings or that sort of thing. Sure, torque specs and tightening sequences for head and manifold bolts are important, but even that is available in manuals for other cars featuring the same engine. What are so desperately needed are are answers to questions like the kind I've asked here. You know: "how does this model-specific accessory or bit of wiring connect up."

By contrast, full-on factory service manuals, assembly manuals and even Fisher Body manuals are readily available for my GM A-bodies (they are available for Mustangs and GM F-bodies too, for that matter). For my 1968 and 1970 El Caminos, my 69 GTO--even my 78 Trans Am--there are resources showing where every nut and bolt, every wire, every line goes. This, despite the fact that it's less necessary: these cars are very straightforward and so much of is shared across platforms--nearly identical from car to car. On the other hand, for our very unique cars with their far more complex electrical, vacuum and plumbing systems, and which share its platform with NOTHING else (or which utilized whatever parts it shared in very different ways--i.e. 84-87 suspension), there's very little documentation supportting them. I'm not stupid, I understand the demand is different and that drives the process. But this info must exist somewhere. If GM had assembly manuals for earlier, simpler cars, they must have provided them for assembly line workers who built the Fiero.Where are these manuals now? Did PHS get this stuff in the data they bought? I sure wish they would surface. In the meantime, I'm grateful we have this forum where the knowledge base of the users can help supply what's lacking in good documentation. Thanks again, guys.

[This message has been edited by Shisida (edited 04-28-2021).]