The factory manual will NOT be too much for her.
Bring it out to her and show it to her. Go through it with her and explain that there's a LOT of additional information in it that won't apply to her truck. Tell her she needs to look at anything that says "C10" and "1/2 ton" and can ignore the rest.
The factory shop manual is excellent--it's thorough, and it's SIMPLE. If she's the least bit intelligent, she'll be able to handle it.
The voice of experience tells me to get a new wiring harness for the truck from American Auto Wire, and install it... it's a weekend project. I would also rebuild the brakes (easy enough) and replace the hard lines, the rubber lines, and get a dual reservoir conversion for it. Another weekend project.
After that, everything else is gravy and can be done at her leisure.
And tell her to sign up on this forum! She'll get a lot of additional help from us.
-Brad
