VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND NEWER 1949-1954 Parts manual for 1951

I have a 29-55 parts manual and am curious if that is the best manual for my 51 Belair. I am working on the doors and do not see an illustration for the Belair. Also some parts have numbers stamped in that I can not find in the manual such as 4592553 .

That is a great question. Let me give my opinion based on many years of Chevrolet research.

Generally mechanical parts are entered into the parts books when a vehicle went into production as fairly quickly those parts might be needed by dealers and repair shops. They remained until several years after those parts were no longer used on new vehicles or sold in reasonable quantities to justify maintaining inventory in the parts warehouses.

The trim parts often were not listed when production began as they were needed for production and not immediately needed by repair facilities. They were listed within a few months when they were available in parts warehouses. They were only kept in the parts system for a few years as they took up a lot of space, there were a large number of variations and demand peaked within a few years. So they were only maintained in the parts books a short time after demand or availability dropped.

Not all trim and other non-mechanical parts were available as individual parts but as assemblies. Therefore their parts numbers are not listed in parts manuals.

Given the above my advise on the best parts manuals is to have one that is within two years of production year. That will have the maximum part numbers for the particular vehicle. I also recommend one or two that are 5 to 10 years after production. Those will list part numbers that have changed from the original. That will identify upgraded part numbers that will work but are improved.

If you might be interested in the number of parts books I have? I have over 20 feet of parts books on my shelves and a file drawer of the earliest books. I also have Price Schedule, Parts History, Catalog Log books to supplement the parts books. Those cover 1912 through the 1980s. Also have some microfiche cards and a reader/printer. One could spend their entire life learning from those books. I use them often.

For best coverage you should have a parts book 1 to 3 years newer that your vehicle.In so doing you can see if there were any 1st or 2nd design changes for your year.

in your example a Fisher body manual may prove more useful.

Chipper and Gene are giving great guidance. At a minimum get a Master Parts list that is only 2 or 3 years newer than the vehicle. If you can my second choice is a manual for the year of the vehicle. In many cases there were design changes and service parts substitutions made even within the first few years.

I agree with Chipper that a 5 to 10 year newer Master Parts List is very helpful when trying to trace the "evolution: of a service part.

I have checked all the various sources for manuals and do not see anything that includes illustrations to cover the Belair doors which is my main interest. I do have the 49 Fisher Body service manual . I agree that a parts manual that is printed after the production run ends by a year or so would be best but I do not see any for 52-53 listed from vendors. Perhaps the service news bulletins might.

Hi Steve

Maybe this will help:
From here:
https://chevy.oldcarmanualproject.com/index.htm

you will find this:
https://chevy.oldcarmanualproject.com/parts/1929_54/index.htm

which has this:
https://chevy.oldcarmanualproject.com/parts/1929_54/537.htm

and this:
https://chevy.oldcarmanualproject.com/parts/1929_54/538.htm

and this:
https://chevy.oldcarmanualproject.com/parts/1929_54/544.htm

Hope that is of some help

PS
With a quick skim through the book, it looks like the Bel Air is covered.

And there is also this:
https://chevy.oldcarmanualproject.com/parts/1929_54/555.htm

PPS
If part #4592553 is a Window Guide-Washer-Bolt,
it's there on page 569... section 10.728.
I'm really not very busy right now. 🙂

Ole you did super as I looked for hours and could not find that part number. Unfortunately I did search all thru the Old Car Manual Project listings and I could not find an illustration to get a group number for the part. I was hoping to do so as my two doors have similar but different internals and the shell is also different. I thought perhaps a picture would help me understand how things went together and which parts are correct for 51. This afternoon I took all my side glass to a shop that does a lot of antique glass repairs and they were familiar with exactly how things should go.