HD service manuals

[danroo]

Any opinions on Clymer service manuals for HD bikes?

 

[bcortani]

Hi danroo and welcome to HDTimeline!! I happen to not have very much mechanical experience, however I do have both the Clymer and the Harley Service Manual for my 2008 Softail. The Clymer was a gift from my mechanic stepdad (really good guy) and I bought the Service manual not knowing he bought me the Clymer. The service manual comes with the printed wring diagram in the book as pullouts, the Clymer includes a CD Rom with the wiring diagrams. the Clymer seems to have a few more pictures where the service manual has drawings. The service manual seems a little less wordy on the steps to follow and the step by step directions are easy to follow, even for me who, again, am not a wrencher.

I have used my service manual to do 3k and 5k service and the winter storage steps...I also used the service manual over the Clymer for my exhaust changeover and dismounting my stock A/C to put on a MaxFlow. So far I have not run into any brain meltdown moments using the shop book. If I had to chose one it would be the shop manual over Clymer as it seems very straight forward, but both are nice to have. Hope this helps. BTW, I got my harley Service Manual online for about 30 bucks brand new on ebay. Beware if you do this and read carefully, a lot of sellers are actually selling the DVD/CD version of the book but show a pic of the actual book.

 

[fin_676]

I have both clymer and hd service manuals and tend to prefer to use the clymer at the time my hd service manuals were written no metric measurements were included and all my measuring tools are metric and the clymer manual has the metric measurements
As i have had my bikes for a few years i know what i am doing in the most case and find the clymer manual table at the end of the chapter with the torque settings capacities and measurements to be a good quick reference for the info i need

Brian

 

[Rubyred]

I have both for my 07 FLSTC and prefer the Clymer over the HD manual all the time.

 

[Bodeen]

I have both for my bike as well. I never look at the Clymer. I like the HD manual much better.

 

[danroo]

Thanks everyone for your input! I don't plan on rebuilding the bike at any point but I think it's references will be good enough to do any minor services I might need to perform.