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A few weeks ago, I replaced my truck's factory ammeter with a Rocketman voltmeter. Great swap, well worth the effort, but I found myself getting frustrated with the paper EVTM. Nothing actually wrong with the EVTM per se, but I got tired of the breeze blowing the pages around. Several times I accidentally flipped to the wrong spot, and started working from the page for a diesel or Bronco instead of the F series. And my biggest concern of all, my fragile 30+ year old paper copy was getting beat up. There had to be a better way.
So I put on my orthopedic thinking cap and made some copies of only the relevant pages. I then edited those copies (MS Paint) to omit any options or features not found on my truck. I went from approximately 136 pages (covering everything under the sun) to 26 pages customized for just my truck. I loaded the newly edited pages in a 3 ring binder with plastic sheet protectors. One big advantage is the pages don't flip around in the breeze anymore.
The finished product in the foreground, the original version in the background:
An example page, for the backup lamps. The original EVTM page shows the Bronco on the left, and the F series on the right with 2 bumper options. My edited version only shows what I have and deletes the rest. I've also added an LED spotlight under the rear bumper, seen near the bottom of my edited page:
Another example for the dome lamp. I don't have the cargo lamp or any of the other optional lights, so the page has been simplified to show only what I've got:
The original paper EVTM can now enjoy its golden years from the safety of my bookshelf. On my abridged version, I've kept the same page numbers in case I ever need to reference the original.
I bought the digital/PDF versions of the factory service manuals for both 1984 and 1985 and they have been well worth their money. I would say that the EVTM is the most valuable document of the set. I like being able to look up what I need on my computer, and if I need any specific pages I can always print them when/if needed. Good idea with the binder though...that'll do the trick nicely.
I did just buy a paper EVTM for a 1993 E350. It seems like sometime after the Bullnose era the EVTM's stopped coming with the full vehicle set and were separate items/documents?...Not sure, but the only way I could find it was to buy it as a stand alone book. The CD for 1993 had all of the body/mechanical/chassis info, but no EVTM oddly.
I bought the digital/PDF versions of the factory service manuals for both 1984 and 1985 and they have been well worth their money.
If I were to start over again, I'd begin with a nice original digital version. I mostly used the 1985 version here, as it is very close to my 1984 and easy enough to edit:
However, I still had to scan a few pages from my 1984 paper EVTM, and the resulting quality was only so-so. It would have been much nicer to be working from a crisp digital original.
However, I still had to scan a few pages from my 1984 paper EVTM, and the resulting quality was only so-so. It would have been much nicer to be working from a crisp digital original.
No such thing as an original digital copy back in 1984. It's all been scanned at one time or another.
All these books were always sold separately. I bought the original factory manuals back in the day when I bought my 1985 mustang SVO. The shop manuals were a set of 3. But I had to pay extra for the emissions manual and the EVTM manual. This was back in the 90's. I ended up having over $150 in the complete set from helm. Now you know why they are so protective of their copyright.
