Just a quick question. How many of you would be interested in having all the manuals that Chevy put out on your particular year of Chevelle put on a CD and would $49.95 be too much to ask for it?

The guys who origanally came up with this idea have had some problems the past 3 or 4 months and are about ready to kick this thing off. They asked me to be a distributor for them, but haven't recieved a sample yet. I thought that I would try to see how many might be interested.

Al, this is the cd's we have "e-mailed" each other about and I'm trying to push these guys on info.

If your interested in one, please e-mail me directly.

Thanks

If the cd had all of the GM produced information for a specific year Chevelle, I would think it would be well worth the price.

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Dean Call
A.C.E.S. # 00235
N.C.O.A. # 4350

macc.chevelles.net (http://macc.chevelles.net)

not a bad idea, but how easy would it be have the system in the shop to use it ? i'm not always sure what pages i need before i start a job and it's nice to have the entire dog-earred, grease smeared assembly manual under the car with me. hard to do with a cd. unless it's really, really well indexed and comes with an envoy or adobe type reader i don't know what the real value would be.

I agree with ddoler. While the 'gee wiz' factor would be there, it's kind of pointless to have the manual on CD inside the house while you're outside under the car. I don't want to have to clean up, run inside, index the cd, make notes, and then go back out every time I need to look something up.

With my paper manuals, I can take them with me when I work on the car, I can write in notes as needed, etc.

kurt

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The 68 Chevelle info page. [last updated Nov. 30, 98]
www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Garage/6873/Chevelle/68_Chevelle_Info.html (http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Garage/6873/Chevelle/68_Chevelle_Info.html)
Email: Kbyfield@terracom.net
A.C.E.S. #1352

If individual pages from the CD can be printed with clarity, then one could take them out to the garage or anywhere else. Would this be possible? I have nnoticed that with the reproduction assembly manuals and service manuals the illustrations and more so the pictures are not as clear as the original GM manuals. This is something else that needs some attention if the CD manual is to be successful.

I recently got a 5 CD set from GM that has a huge load of info, but finding what I'm looking for is a real pain in the @$$. Once I do find the section, printing it out is fairly easy and helpful, but if I were charging by the hour, somebody would go bankrupt on this. Hopefully the above manuals for the Chevelle is much better setup. Pretty good idea though. Gets rid of all the heavy books that tear up and get all greasy. Fifty bucks is very reasonable since factory service manuals are now going for well over 100 for a recent model year. tom

Thanks guys for ya'lls input. You bring up some very valid questions that would be nice to have answers to. I hope I can find out those answers and let you guys know. Like I have stated before, I have yet to recieve one of there CD's, but it's suppose to be in the mail. (yea right)

We'll see and I'll keep everyone posted about this. Thanks again and keep the questions coming. Maybe we can take one of their CD's and improve on it, just for "Team Chevelle" members only.

I agree with the comments of "printable by page"!!!!! To only be able to print the whole thing would be a waste.

If they are the "factory" manuals and include the "factory assembly manual", I'd be in line with my 50 bucks.

Wes.

I have to deal with CDs in my daily work for reference info. Can be real nice for doing searchs etc. Id bet tho that this info will be copies of the original GM pages (ie scanned) and everything on the page is an image,not text as in todays PC documents. If that is the case,you are way better off with a manual.

Being able to search the CD by keyword is a must. I also agree with the comment about printing a page at a time. Sounds like a good idea.

Might as well put my 2 cents worth in.
I think manuals on CD stink. Have you ever tried tracing a wiring problem over three pages, on a computer screen. Or tried "flipping" through the pages to find a particular item or drawing ? Don't get me wrong, I am very pro computer, or I would not be here right now, but I think that service manuals are much easier to use on paper. I am probably kind of hard on this subject as I have been trying to install an alarm on my 99 Tahoe with only the cd pages to look at, and there are over 100 of them just in the wiring diagrams. I am being told that there will be NO printed service documentation from GM for my truck. This includes from Helm Inc. So I am stuck with borrowing the cd and trying to find what I need and printing it. Give me paper any day.

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Bill Koustenis
Advanced Automotive Machine
Waldorf Md


[This message has been edited by BillK (edited 04-26-99).]

I think my wife might get a little P.O.'ed when the keyboard keys get covered with grease http://www.chevelles.com/forum/wink.gif. In my line of work (electronic design) the days of printed data books are numbered, as more and more parts manufacturers are relying on CD's and the internet for distributing information. It's not the same as thumbing through a book. To me, finding the information is the hardest part, and I consider myself pretty good at using search functions. Plus, if you look at my chiltons and the like you can tell by the dirty pages where my cars' info is. I think as a hobbiest I would buy it for the novelty of it, but would rarely use it in the actual repairs

I think the CDs would be great for mass amounts of info like on all toyota vehicles, all chev. vehicles, etc for say a shop but if its just for one type of car for the home person, a cd might be more trouble than its worth. Id probably still take one if it had ALL of the info that the different books, etc did, and was easy enough to browse/search...

all in all, it would be nice to have a good product like that, but it would have to be really good to be useful.

I have the Popular Mechanics CD and in most cases it showes more than books it even has T.S.B.'s. The thing is great to print the pages take them out let them get dirty, riped, etc. and throw them out. The only thing is that it takes some time to learn now to use it but once you learn it's easy and the T.S.B.'s are great. The cost is $20.00 for the CD with one car + $10.00 for the T.S.B.'s for it. Then each car is $10.00 + $10.00 for the T.S.B.'s.

I speak from experience here. My daytime job is as a CAD/EDMS Administrator for an engineering firm (my night job is to spend money on car parts and scrub grease from under my fingernails)

The key to any electronic document is the ability to find what you need quickly through some form of content hierarchy and keyword index. It's very similar to Adobe Acrobat or in some regards like the Tech Forums.

If I'm looking for the page in an assembly manual that shows how to connect the wiring harness and printed circuit for a 70SS dash, I'd expect to see the page in a section under electrical > interior > dashboard (something like that). If I can't quite fiqure out where in the index hierarchy it would be, I should be able to type in keywords such as Dashboard, Electrical, Wiring, printed or other that describe something about what I'm looking for.

If the authors of the CD do a real good job of organizing, indexing applying keywords the pages, it would be great. Just do a quick keyword search, find the data, print and go!

Just scanning pages is useless.



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members.tripod.com/dfdolerjr

$49.95 would be a good price. I would like very much to see all '66 manuals (service, overhaul, and assembly)converted over to CD ROM.

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Searching is the key. If you put the factory assembly manual for my 67 on CD and indexed it so I didn't have to flip through the entire book to find that console diagram, I would buy it. I would need to be able print that the page and take it to the garage with me.

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Jameel Qazi
#'s 67 SS

It has its advantages and disadvantages. True, the keyboard would get all greasy (break out the trusty engine degreaser -- that should work!) if you didn't know what you were looking for and you already had the car ripped apart. However, if you knew what you were doing just not how to do it right, it would be really convenient to print a page or two and throw them away after getting black fingerprints all over them. You can't do that with a service manual. I'd probably buy it even though I think 50 bucks is a little much. I've paid more for less important things. Doesn't Chilton already make CDs for newer model cars? I thought for sure I saw them somewhere.

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Jeremy J. Bennett
72 Chevelle SS


[This message has been edited by 72CHEVELLE (edited 05-04-99).]

i agree with jaqazi and the other guys on searching. it would need to be a really slick, fast searching system. as well as a good search engine, it should also have a good indexing system, for those who know what they are looking for and just wanna find the page. It should also contain ALL the casting codes used on chevelles from 1964 and up, or maybe all chevys from that era. why? because how often do you buy a 69 chevelle that has a 65 impala 396 in it? my dad and i bought "chevy by the numbers" for 1970-75 and when i start trying to check the engine codes on my 70 SS, i quickly found that none of the stuff i had was in the book. so i had to drop $30 on the pre-70 edition. if you're gonna charge $50 for a CD, you might as well pack it with as much info as possible. You got 650+ mb of space on it.

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Ian McDermott
1970 Chevelle SS 396
Columbia University
New York, NY.
E-mail: havoc@graffiti.net
Web page: chevelle.dhs.org (http://chevelle.dhs.org)
ICQ UIN: 3923441