Haynes: Rotate counter-clockwise.

Translation: Clamp with vice-grips then beat repeatedly with hammer

counter-clockwise.

Haynes: This is a snug fit.

Translation: Clamp with vice-grips then beat repeatedly with hammer.

Haynes: This is a tight fit.

Translation: Clamp with vice-grips then beat repeatedly with a hammer.

Haynes: As described in Chapter 7...

Translation: That'll teach you not to read through before you start. Now you are looking at scary photos of the inside of a gearbox.

Haynes: Pry off

Translation: Hammer a screwdriver into...

Haynes: Undo...

Translation: Go buy a can of WD40 (giant economy size).

Haynes: Retain tiny spring...

Translation: PINGGGG - "Where the hell did that go?"

Haynes: Press and rotate to remove bulb...

Translation: OK - that's the glass bit off, now fetch some good pliers to dig out the socket part (and maybe a piece of glass or two).

Haynes: Lightly...

Translation: Start off lightly and build up till the veins on your forehead are throbbing then clamp with vice-grips then beat repeatedly with hammer.

Haynes: Weekly checks...

Translation: If it isn't broken don't fix it.

Haynes: Routine maintenance...

Translation: If it isn't broken, it's about to be. We warned.

Haynes: One Difficulty rating.

Translation: An infant could do this... so how did you manage to **** it up?

Haynes: Two Difficulty rating.

Translation: Now you may think that you can do this because two is a low, teensy weensy number... but you also thought the wiring diagram was a map of the Tokyo underground (in fact that would have been more use to you).

Haynes: Three Difficulty rating.

Translation: Make sure you won't need your car for a couple of days.

Haynes: Four Difficulty rating.

Translation: You're not seriously considering this are you?

Haynes: Five Difficulty rating.

Translation: OK - but don't ever carry your loved ones in it again.

Haynes: If not, you can fabricate your own special tool like this...

Translation: Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Haynes: Compress...

Translation: Squeeze with all your might, jump up and down on it, throw it at the garage wall, then find some vice-grips and a hammer...

Haynes: Inspect...

Translation: Squint at really hard and pretend you know what you are

Looking at, then declare in a loud knowing voice to your wife "Yep, as I thought, it's going to need a new one"

Haynes: Carefully...

Translation: You are about to suffer deep abrasions.

Haynes: Retaining nut...

Translation: Yes, that's it, that big spherical blob of rust.

Haynes: Get an assistant...

Translation: Prepare to humiliate yourself in front of someone you know.

Haynes: Turning the engine will be easier with the spark plugs removed.

Translation: However, starting the engine afterwards will be much harder. Once that sinking pit of your stomach feeling has subsided, you can start to feel deeply ashamed as you gingerly refit the spark plugs.

Haynes: Refitting is the reverse sequence to removal.

Translation: Yeah, right. But you swear in different places.

Haynes: Pry away plastic locating pegs...

Translation: Snap off...

Haynes: Using a pin punch...

Translation: Clamp with vice-grips then beat repeatedly with hammer.

Haynes: Everyday toolkit

Translation: AAA Card & Mobile Phone

Haynes: Apply moderate heat...

Translation: Unless you have a blast furnace, don't bother.

Alternatively, clamp with vice-grips then beat repeatedly with hammer.

Mike:

This is SO TRUE!!!

However, I must append the following:

USES FOR TOOLS

HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate expensive car parts not far from the object we are trying to hit.

MECHANIC’S KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on boxes containing convertible tops or tonneau covers.

ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning steel pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age, but it also works great for drilling rollbar mounting holes in the floor of a sports sedan just above the brake line that goes to the rear wheel cylinders.

PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads.

HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

VICE-GRIPS: Used to round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting those stale garage cigarettes you keep hidden in the back of the socket drawer (what wife would think to look in there?) because you can never remember to buy lighter fluid for the Zippo lighter you got from the PX at Fort Campbell.

ZIPPO LIGHTER: See oxyacetylene torch.

DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, splattering it against the Rolling Stones poster over the bench grinder.

WIRE WHEEL: Cleans rust off old bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprints and hard-earned guitar calluses in about the time it takes you to say, “&%(*)?/#@!”.

HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering a Z to the ground after you have installed a set of Mulholland lowered road springs, trapping the jack handle firmly under the front air dam.

EIGHT-FOOT LONG DOUGLAS FIR 2X4: Used for levering a car upward off a hydraulic jack.

TWEEZERS: A tool for removing wood splinters.

PHONE: Tool for calling your neighbor Chris to see if he has another hydraulic floor jack.

SNAP-ON GASKET SCRAPER: Theoretically useful as a sandwich tool for spreading mayonnaise; used mainly for getting dog-doo off your boot.

E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool that snaps off in boltholes and is ten times harder than any known drill bit.

TIMING LIGHT: A stroboscopic instrument for illuminating grease buildup on crankshaft pulleys.

CRAFTSMAN ½ x 16-INCH SCREWDRIVER: A large motor mount prying tool that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end without the handle.

BATTERY ELECTROLYTE TESTER: A handy tool for transferring sulfuric acid from a car battery to the inside of your toolbox after determining that your battery is dead as a doornail, just as you thought.

AVIATION METAL SNIPS: See hacksaw.

TROUBLE LIGHT: The mechanic’s own tanning booth. Sometimes called a drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, “the sunshine vitamin”, which is not otherwise found under cars at night. Health benefits aside, its main purpose is to consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate that 105-mm howitzer shells might be used during, say, the first few hours of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the lids of old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your shirt: can also be used, as the name implies, to round out Phillips screw heads.

AIR COMPRESSOR: A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning power plant 200 miles away and transforms it into compressed air that travels by hose to a Chicago Pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty suspension bolts last tightened 24 years ago by someone in Yokohama, and snaps them off.