K-F Service/Parts Data

K-F published general shop manuals and special manuals for specific items such as power steering. Manuals distributed by the factory are under the heading Factory Shop Manuals and include for the most part only those manuals and supplements required for complete coverage of all year models. There are many more factory manuals, either in preliminary or advance information form, that are of interest to collectors but are not required for servicing K-F cars. No attempt was made to include items as supplied by original equipment manufacturers such as Carter and Delco-Remy. An obvious exception is the overdrive manual published by Borg-Warner. (Manuals such as these were frequently included with Service Bulletins-see below for more on Service Bulletins.)

A quick inspection of the list shows coverage for all Kaiser, Frazer, and Henry J models through 1953 (the '54 J is identical to the '53).

The appropriate repair items for use with '54-'55 Kaisers are spelled out in K-W Service Bulletin No. 275 (December 13,1954):

Absent is any reference to the Supercharger Manual. It was published after December of 1954.

Note that there is no separate manual for the Darrin. K-W Service Bulletin 275 lists the following for Darrin service:

Service Bulletins supplement the information in the shop manuals. They frequently cover "fixes" for unanticipated problems in cars after they had been in the hands of customers, etc. They contain information not generally found in the shop manuals. K-F published a total of 418 service bulletins and K-W "carried-over" some of these and some of the old Willys bulletins; the K-F carry-overs were renumbered from 2 to 178 and the Willys from 179 through 219 or 220. New K-W bulletins started with either 220 or 221 and continued through at least 300.

Factory Service Standards Books list all the specifications needed in servicing vehicles such as torque values, front-end alignment specs, etc.

Factory Parts Manuals are not quite as useful perhaps as the shop manuals, but the ones that are illustrated sometimes supplement information in the shop manuals. Original part numbers are of some value even with rapidly vanishing supplies of new-old-stock parts. Other valuable resources are the Parts and Parts and Accessories Price Lists. These are the major listings of updates, corrections, cross references, and cancellations of parts and accessories.

There are numerous non-factory publications that may be of interest. Parts coverage in these manuals is not as comprehensive as in the factory manuals. The body manuals contain information that may not be available elsewhere.

The wiring diagram books are probably not as well-known as some of the others.

The Hollander manuals may also be unfamiliar to some people. These were used by salvage yards to look up interchangeable parts and may be of some use.

Factory Shop Manuals

Factory Service Standards Books

Factory Parts Manuals

Other Service/Parts Manuals

This information is from the Handbook and was originally published in slightly different form in the Quarterly Vol 27 No 3.

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