Granddaddy of the DIY repair generation John Haynes has loosened his last nut
Obit John Haynes, the creator of the Haynes Manual and at least partly responsible for the skinned knuckles of enthusiastic amateur car repairers around the world, has tightened his last bolt and headed off to the great workshop in the sky aged 80. Haynes passed away on 8 February after a short illness.
He bought a camera and documented the step-by-step process of the rebuild with photography and exploded diagrams that would become a hallmark of his eponymous manuals. The first Haynes Manual, for the Sprite, was published in 1966 and sold out rapidly. Other guides soon followed, and to date over 200 million Haynes Manuals have been sold around the world.
Haynes was undoubtedly a pioneer in giving consumers the tools needed to maintain their vehicles as well as instilling an enthusiasm for stripping down and rebuilding recalcitrant machinery.
"Haynes manuals have been a beacon of light in a dark world of increasingly locked down hardware. Their DIY guides have inspired generations of fixers to work on their vehicles. iFixit, and all of us in the repair community, stand on the shoulders of giants like John Haynes."
I bought a few of his manuals myself back in the 1980's. It was my feeling of assurance that I could repair anything myself that broke on my vehicles. It gave me the confidence back then to strip down and rebuild a motor myself. Try this today, even if you could work on the highly computerised engines, the trend has been to lock everything down as tight as John Deere tractor.
See https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/02/13/john_haynes/
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Granddaddy of the DIY repair generation John Haynes has loosened his last nut • The Register |