Customer Reviews

Intertec's Vintage Collection Series: Four-Stroke Motorcycles (Intertec's Vintage Collection Series) (Interecs Vintage Collection)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Personally, I think this book is kind of lame. It is a manual with about 5 to 7 pages for each series of bike covered. It is kind of interesting to flip through the pages to see how various engines are built, but if I want a manual I would much rather buy a manual that is specific to an individual bike.

I bought it because I thought it was a book about vintage motorcycles and not a service manual. I sure wish Amazon would work harder to show the abstracts for each book.

As the previous review said, this isn't really a book about the motorcycles, just an no-nonsense shop manual for multitudes of bikes. While it's true that you should probably get a dedicated shop manual for whatever bike you're working on, this has turned out to be extremely handy.
Since it has so many bikes, it limits the information on each to very short and concise procedures and lots of numbers and data. Not so good if you're looking for in-depth directions but it's perfect if you already know your way around the bike in question and only need to know, say, what your points gap should be, what your rocker/valve clearances should be, bolt torque specs, etc. without having to rifle through the whole shop manual to find your answers spread out over a whole chapter. It includes exploded drawings as well, though they're not nearly as big as a dedicated parts manual so it can be tough to make everything out if you're looking at something with tons of little pieces. They're still clearer than most of the pixelated JPG's of shop drawings I've come across though.
I also like the few chapters of general info at the beginning as well. Includes stuff like plug reading, explanations of all the different carb circuits and carb tuning, all the way down to basic 4-stroke motor theory and operation.
While I'd still recommend getting a dedicated manual for whatever bike you're working on, this book is perfect as a quick reference for the multitude of numbers and dimensions you need that are easily forgotten even on a familiar bike.

Where am I going to find the points and plug gap for my 1966 Rex? How about that Ossa 2-stroke, what do you think the valve clearances should be? Let's suppose you have a box of rusty parts in the garage, and you'd like to put it back together again into a vintage small motorcycle.

After great effort you discover it's not a Suzuki, Kawasaki, or Honda, but a Garelli, White, Benneli, Sachs, Puch... let's suppose what you have is a Sears Allstate? Or a Bridgestone, Broncco, BSA, Bultaco, Ducati, Harley-Davidson (that would make it an Aermacchi, right?), Hodaka, Maico, Montessa, Moto Beta, Villers?

Get the manual. Right. Good luck. Depending what it is you may be completely out of luck on finding an original.

So what this book is, is the essential bare-bones shop reference for all the obscure 2-strokes (80cc or more). This includes a lot of interesting 60's dirt bikes (think Steve McQueen) and sexy italian lightweight racers (you can go really fast if you weigh very little and don't slow down in the corners). Back in those days there were a lot of little obscure brands, often europeans imported to the US, and it's not easy to get a lot of information on them.

This manual fills that gap by providing all the information you need to have- if you don't have this info you won't be able to get it started and tuned, and for many of these obscure little old bikes, this manual is all that stands between them and obscurity.

And c'mon, you know you can't resist having a book of all the data on all these things so when your buddy calls up and says "I dunno, man, it says 'White' on the motor" you can grab the book and say "I got that covered. Get your tools, we'll tune it".


With all due respect for others in the Amazon reviewing community, a review that says "I don't like it because I thought it was something else" is not helpful, that speaks to the buyer's mistakes, not the quality of the item. (unless of course there were misrepresentation, which is not the case here) Return the book, don't write a negative review. At the same time, it also would be nice if more complete decription were included in listings for books like this. If you're not sure what a book is, do a search for the title, look on ebay. There are many sources besides Amazon, fine long tail that it is.