Looking for a good general fixit guide for my 85 VW GTI. Currently, all the ones I see that cover my make, model, and year also cover pretty much all other VW products from 1978-1990. It’s not a whole lot of help to see diagrams for ‘Cabriolet only’ or crap for Rabbit diesel pickups. Is there a guide down there that narrows it down to at least the right model?
A perk would also be something that doesn’t oversimplify like my Haynes guide does. Not that I’m a total idiot, but their manual is a little sparse on sizes and procedures (their procedure to replace a clutch is about 8 steps…if you can do it in eight steps, you probably don’t need a book).
Have you checked at a VW dealer to see if you can buy their service manual? IIRC, those are pretty detailed. Also, Chilton’s makes manuals, but those, like the Haynes are not specific to a particular year and can be a little vague at times. Having owned a few VWs in the past, in most instances, the major mechanical stuff is very similar…at least on the models from '78 up to '85 or '86 ( I don’t remember which) when the Golf replaced the Rabbit.
You can probably get a Bentley manual at the Dealer. IMHO it’s the best one available for VWs and BMWs and it was the official shop manual for the air cooled bugs. Poor Richard’s Rabbit Book is probably a good bet too, it was the sequel to the original guide for the compleat idoit for air cooled.