at3reg98

I'm wondering what the name of the book is that would show diagrams of various parts of the car and their respective part numbers. I like to go searching for NOS parts for my '83 but often times finding the numbers is just as difficult.

What would the name of the manual be that GM had to identify them?

at3reg98

Nevermind, I guess it's the "parts and illustration" catalog.

wmachine

Also, the Asembly Manual is a good source to use to help identify parts along with the Part Catalog. Both are available free of charge at Wild About Cars!

http://wildaboutcarsonline.com/cgi-b...aldisplayed=50

http://wildaboutcarsonline.com/cgi-b...aldisplayed=50


Wild About Cars. http://wildaboutcars.com. An information supersource, especially Oldsmobile. More Olds content than anywhere else on the internet and continuing to grow.
You'll find Chassis Service Manuals, Product Information Manuals (AKA Assembly Manuals), Inspector's Manuals, and other documents that will contain this and much much more.
Dealer Brochures, magazine ads and articles, and the Automotive History Preservation Society library growing daily.
Free to join, free to learn.

joe_padavano

The factory parts book is the "bible" as far as part numbers are concerned, but a couple of things you need to be aware of. First, as parts got dropped or superceded in the parts system, later revisions of the parts book only reflected what was available at the time of printing. This means that the part numbers in the parts book may not be the ones your car was born with, only the closest possible replacement part available at the time. One example of this is cylinder heads. There is a version of the 1965-1975 parts book available on-line that's dated August 1983. For BBO cylinder heads it only lists the K heads for all performance applications and J heads for everything else. Contrary to what some people will try to tell you, that doesn't mean that K heads are equivalent to F heads, only that they were the closest match available at the time of printing. Bottom line is that you need to use the parts book with a printing date as close to the year of your car as possible. I have a 1971 printing parts book and even it has spotty coverage of the pre-1970 parts. That 1983 printing has virtually nothing for the pre-1972 cars (I have that one also and it was a complete waste of money).

Second, you need to be VERY CAREFUL when reading the applications. It is easy to get confused if you aren't familiar with GM's part naming nomenclature or with the car series (example: "EXC F85" means that the part does not apply to any A-body car, including Cutlass, 442, and Vista Cruiser).

tru-blue 442

This is GREAT info on these books.
I now know that the $ I spent on my
May 1980 printing of the chassis and
body parts with models thru 75 illustration
catalog wasn't a COMPLETE waste of $$.

We could use a sticky on these, no?
Scott, John, Joe, Erics', Trip, Kurt? Thoughts?

oldcutlass

I got nothing to add, Joe pretty much covered it.

I think the only car I've ever needed an assembly manual for is the 1967 Corvette 427/4spd Roadster I'm currently working on. The main reason is that I did not take it apart, so it's like a shop sized jigsaw puzzle.

I also have a fairly good set of motors manuals covering most years of my interests.