maintenance

[Andy Bennett]

My own experience was that all the maintenance books are of an era. For me they all had their own 'ah so that's it' parts and plenty of other confusing and sometimes contradictory parts. Their value also depends massively on the readers baseline knowledge. I find that as my own knowledge improves over the years the books also become more useful in filling in gaps and confirming points. So I am with Ian on the question of different people's view of the value of different books. Also noting that most of the books we refer to here are for the Austin 7, and I think you said you have a Big 7, so big red book etc will be of no use to you.

For me the answers and confidence to starting to use my Austin Seven came from the people not the books.

All comes back to what we have all been saying, and I think Banjo is going to do, join the local club and start chatting with those who know and can point at oily bits and tell you how the book might say this, but with modern this and that the reality of today is this, and if you lever this bit up here to get access to that bit then voila problem solved.....

As you did say before you are new to car maintenance I would also seek out an independent local club member to check the car over before you start using it to make sure there aren't any problem areas you don't yet know of and which might cause you catastrophic failures etc.

All is going to be a little more complicated as most of us here are Austin 7 owners, not Big 7, so you will need to find someone who knows the Big 7 and its similarities/differences.

good luck
Andy

EDIT: I was typing whilst Jeff was replying, but same thoughts re being careful not to take advice for an Austin 7 when you have a Big 7.