I recently purchased a very nice, low mileage, 350 powered 1987 IROC. I'm going to buy a real shop manual for it. My choice is to buy a used original or a brand new reprint. Has anyone purchased one of the reprints for any year Camaro. I'm just wondering if the printing is good or if it's some low quality printing like someone used a copy machine. If that is the case, then I'd just buy a used original copy and deal with the greasy fingerprints all in the shop manual. Here is a link to a new, reprint copy. Let me know if you have any information. Thank you!

1987 Chevrolet Camaro Shop Manual Chassis & Body Includes 11x26 Wiring Diagrams

 

heres 89 if you want to save some $.. not too many differences between 87 and 89

https://austinthirdgen.org/wp-conten...ice_Manual.pdf

 

I'd go with a used original. They come up for sale on ebay frequently, usually at a reasonable price (new, from Helms, they ran ~$135-$140 back in the day).

 

Yes. I see used originals on eBay. I know I can't go wrong with an original as long as I accept that it's going to be worn and probably have a lot of greasy fingerprints all in it.

I was wondering if anyone had experience with the reprints. Like I mentioned in my original post, if I buy a new copy, I want to make sure that I'm not buying a poor print job.

 

ughmas, thank you for the link to the 1989 manual. I've already downloaded it! Still, I wouldn't mind having a paper copy so I may still buy one.

 

You will need two manuals for your 1987 IROC-Z.

1987 Chevrolet Camaro Shop Manual Chassis & Body Includes 11x26 Wiring Diagrams

1987 Chevrolet Camaro Electrical Diagnosis Service Manual Supplement

I did some searching and the manuals that eBay seller has are printed by Detroit Iron Press. They seem to be a legit company offering high quality OEM licensed manuals.

Factory Shop Manuals for Ford, General Motors, Chrysler and Jeep | Detroit Iron

MSRP for the shop manual is $90.00 and $35.00 for the electrical supplement manual.


MORE ABOUT OUR MANUALS

Detroit Iron Publishing is your source for industry-leading, licensed, print and digital reproduction service manuals, parts manuals, body manuals, and electrical manuals. All of the factory content is retained. That means you get the comprehensive details written by the experts at the original equipment manufacturers (OEM). These manuals contain the most accurate and efficiently-organized information but are now available in a freshly printed and packaged book, or in a convenient digital format. Combining great attention to detail, and using the highest quality equipment and materials, Detroit Iron delivers truly outstanding products.

 

Airwolfe, I told my wife that I was going to buy both of those manuals. At the moment, the main reason that I want the manuals is because of the electrical information. The rest of the info is just "gravy." However, the gravy may be needed the most next year or 5 years from now.

I clicked on your link to Detroit Iron's website and took a look around. It does look like a legitimate company and they offer a lot of reproduced shop manuals. I'm now thinking of buying one for my 1980 Z28 as well as one for my 2002 WS6 Trans Am. Unfortunately, Detroit Iron only goes up to 1999 for Camaro/Firebird.

 

Check out some car shows as well, not meetups in mall parking lots, but shows. Venders sometimes have them, and decent prices.

 

That's a good idea that I never would've thought about.

I'll probably just order one of the new, reproductions since I don't have any plans of attending a real car show any time in the foreseeable future.

 

I ordered the set of manuals both CD and hard copy from Detroit Iron. Good quality stuff...though I use the CD version a lot more now that I exported it into PDF format.

 

Nice to hear that the Detroit Iron reprints are good quality products!

Albert, I see that you have a T56 in your Z28. I've got a brand new T56 Magnum F, still in the box, waiting to go into my IROC.

 

https://www.auto-repair-manuals.com/contact-us.htm

Also check him out. Good guy. I bought a factory repair manual from him in 2017. Reasonable prices

 

I'm coming back into this thread to let everyone know that I did purchase the brand new, reprinted shop manuals. Spent a little bit less than $100 for three soft cover manuals shipped to me from two different eBay sellers.


The darker colored manual is actually two different books.



Here is a look at a couple of pages in the Electrical manual.



Another look in the same manual


These manuals will come in real handy over the years and I'm happy with my two different purchases.

 

They look real nice.

 

The print quality appears to be very good. Just thumbing through the books, the technical detail is fantastic.

In the 40 years that I've messed with cars, I've only ever used Chiltons and Haynes car manuals. Those appear to be child's play compared to real shop manuals. I should get a real shop manuals for my 2002 WS6 Trans Am, 1991 LS376/480, Tremec T56 Magnum swapped Mustang and 1980 Camaro Z28.

 

Nothing compares to a real factory shop manual. Chilton and Haynes repair manuals are like elementary school books compared to these.

 

Yes! I simply didn't know what I didn't know. If I'd known how good these real, factory shop manuals were I would've never purchased a Chiltons or Haynes manual.

 

There are some nice originals on ebay without the greasy prints for decent prices. The reprints are nice too, but the wiring diagrams are black/white. The originals have them in color...ooh!

 

NOOOOOOO!!!!!! Now I find out ! If I would've known this two weeks ago, I wouldn't have purchased the brand new reprints. The wiring diagrams are hard for most of us to follow and having them in color would've been worth a lot. I guess that when I buy real shop manuals for my other cars, I'll look for the original versions.

 

Yep, I think the repro's are B&W for cost. Thats why i prefer the originals.

 

I'd much rather have the color version like yours. It just makes it a little easier to follow.

I won't buy black and white reprints for my other cars.

 

Especially the different color wires, much easier to follow.

 

So much easier to follow. Like I said, had I known this before I purchased the black and white reprints, I would've purchased the originals. Even if they had greasy fingerprints, I'd rather have the color wiring schematics.

 

Man I'm sorry. I had no idea they weren't in color.

I'll ask my friend if he might be interested in buying them. He just got a Red on Red 1987 IROC-Z last year and he is color blind. We have lots of shop manuals for 3rd gens but I don't think for 1987 because it's the only 1987 3rd gen in the collection.

They can be shipped relatively inexpensively using USPS Media Mail.

 

You can also buy I digital copy on CD. I believe those are color since most of those guys use an original fsm to make them.

 

I've purchased the "new" versions, and as discussed, the electrical diagrams were black and white. ....recently purchased an old grungy copy for my new 86z, with the color diagrams. The covers get dirty and torn, but overall I've found the used ones to typically be complete and readable. The 86 manual, while dirty, was only $30 bucks or so.

 

Here is some pictures of the factory shop manual that got me hooked on my "Nothing but factory shop manuals will do." kick.

Printed 8/66

Has black and white electrical and vacuum diagrams, but color diagrams for the hydraulic circuits of the automatic transmission.


Well worn and battle tested.

My uncle had a thing about putting his name and address on all of his stuff.

He even did it on the inside front and back covers too.

 

Shorty after I purchased my 1984 T/A in October 2021, I bought the GM shop service manuals, all three of them. The problem with the manuals contain service info for all
the body types - A, X, J, B, G,F, & T. Makes it a pain in the rear. Sometimes, I think these manuals were written by engineers and not for the regular user.

 

My 1987 Camaro manuals that I posted pictures of in post #13 are specific to Camaros. I can imagine what a pain it would be to have to sift through A, X, J, etc. trying to find specific F body information.

 

Can anyone confirm that the digital copies on CD are in color? Also, can you print from the CD? After spending some time with my paper copy manuals, I realized that it would be nice to print out the particular section that I'm working on and take that out to the garage. If I get it all greasy, who cares?

 

I have a digital copy and the wiring diagrams are in color. I couldn't find an original fsm that was nice enough and not priced sky high. So I bought one on CD, eventually I found a nice original fsm for a great price.
I also asked the seller of the CD, prior to buying it if the diagrams were in color, just in case.

 

84, thank you for confirming that the CD has the diagrams in color.

I was looking on eBay last night and I saw CD/USB versions of the service manual available. I guess that since they're in electron format, 1986 and 1987 Camaro service manuals are included in the CD/USB. Unfortunately, the description clearly states that the electrical diagrams are for 1986 Camaros only. 1987 electrical diagrams are not included.

My wife asked me how similar the electrical systems are for 1986 and 1987. I said that I'm sure they are very similar but probably have some minor differences. In a perfect world, the CD/USB would have both years' electrical diagrams. Maybe they're identical?

 

Another vote for used original. I've seen some pretty cr@ppy reproductions before. Most look like they're Xerox copies of a paper manual and the person doing the copy wasn't spending a lot of time letting the page stay on the glass before moving to the next page. That said, you need to be careful of used, too. I recently got a used FSM for our 4000-mile Dakota R/T, and while complete, the cover was ripped loose.

Being in Montgomery, a trip to the Houston Autorama would be worth it over Thanksgiving weekend. There's a swap meet area and the vendors with old advertising and service manuals are numerous. You can actually put your hands on a copy to verify it's complete and in good shape.

 

Ahh, the 'good old days' when factory service manuals were only one volume!! The other cool thing is they actually showed you how to rebuild components, like distributors, alternators, starters, and not 'read code, replace unit' kind of stuff in 'modern' manuals.

 

I'll have to try to remember this for late this year. It would be good to actually be able to thumb through the used manual to check it out before purchase.