Yes those are good and everyone should carry one with them in their trucks or vans. PLUS a magnifying glass to look at the vacuum routing and electrical diagrams.
Some people think that since the 'Diesel' section seems so small that these manuals aren't any good for IDI vehicles. That's not true and they seem to overlook the fact that nearly everything else on the vehicle is the same as the gas vehicles so these books are good for just about any repair you will ever need to do on your vehicle, except for internal transmission repairs and dismantling and rebuilding diesel injection pumps, both of which which will require additional specialized manuals.
I would recommend these paperback books long before I would recommend the complete factory service manuals on CD. That is 5 different manuals in .PDF with a total of over 3500 pages. Those take a lot of time to learn how to navigate through them and more time and experience to find specific things you are looking for without having to use up a lot of time with a lot of frustration to find exactly what you are looking for. (Tip) when you open up one of the manuals in .pdf, look at the table of contents first to find the section and page number where it starts, it might be something like 24-16-07. Then use the 'Search' or 'Find' function in your PDF reader, type in that number and hit 'Enter' to take you right to it so you won't have to scroll through 200-300 pages just to get to that section. OR you can try several different search terms o find what you are looking for. If you don't find it in that manual, go to another 'likely' manual and look again. If not there try another manual. It take some time and experience to learn which manual some things will be found in and where to find different things. Some things are found in more than one manual and the entries are different. Glow plug controller and glow plug circuits for example are found in the electrical manual AND the emission controls manual.
Those factory service manuals were created to train Ford Service technicians at dealerships. I would only recommend these to very serious mechanics or people who want to have the level of knowledge that Ford Service Technicians had back in the days of these IDI diesels. These are not very practical for the average backyard mechanic and they will require quite a bit of time to learn how to use them efficiently.
I have been in the habit of buying one of these books, Chilton or Haynes for every vehicle that I have owned since the 1960s AND ALWAYS KEEP IT IN THE VEHICLE! It won't do any good if/when your vehicle breaks down, the lights quit working, etc. = you need to diagnose the problem and you left the book at home.
I also highly recommend this to women vehicle owners even if they have no 'fix-it' knowledge. If their car breaks down somewhere, usually people will stop to help, especially people with some auto repair knowledge will stop to help. With the diagnostics sections in the manuals, the problem can usually be properly diagnosed and it might just need a simple replacement part from the nearest auto parts store to be up and running again and she might be able to drive it home.
On the other hand, if she (or anyone) has a friend who will come and try to fix a vehicle, having the repair manual inside of the car is almost essential to properly diagnose what is wrong and fix it. It will also explain how to pull up an error code if the vehicle has that function, as well as describe what the error code means. People need to understand that basically every car or truck is different so someone who has not done work on that specific make model and years series of that vehicle is going to need to consult a repair manual that covers that specific car in order to properly diagnose the problem and fix it in a timely manner.
That's my opinion
Lastly, I often see used auto repair manuals in the book sections at thrift stores (second hand stores). I've found some really good large hard cover editions too as well as very old manuals for very old 'antique' vehicles and once a complete set of 'Motors' Manuals. I think those are published by Hemmings and most professional automotive repair shops used to have those sets since I've been working on vehicles as a back yard mechanic (mid 1960's). I'm quite sure they also contain the shop time estimates for various jobs when done in a fully equipped shop. That set didn't include any vehicles that I owned so I didn't buy it.
I also found a Diesel Technology text book, used in trade schools / junior colleges to train diesel mechanics / technicians. That was a good book! One day a young lady about 20 years old came to my door trying to sell something so she could win a free trip somewhere. She told me she wanted to go back to school to become a Diesel Mechanic or technician so I gave her that book.
If you would like to have a textbook like that you can go to any college bookstore from a college that offers a Diesel Tech program and probably obtain a used copy of the textbook for about 1/2 price or a little less.
