OEM Owners Manual Remake

AKimball92

AKimball92

True Classic
I was given a OEM Owners Manual '74-'78 on loan from Paul Valente to aid in my engine build. With it, I copied each page individually and edited them to make each page white and crisp again using RawTherapee as well as PowerPoint. There are still signs the pages were copied from a 40+ year old book but the images present really well.

Would anyone be interested in helping to fund some remakes of this manual? I have been in contact with a printing company near my work that could print them in 36lb weight reinforced 3 hole punch paper. The weight is approximate but the pages feel borderline cardstock. There are a few pages requiring 11x17 like the original as well as 1 page with color (engine & vehicle coolant lines diagram perhaps). Binding will probably be in a 3-4" white 3 ring binder unless I specify unbound to do it personally.

I have not yet received a quote per book yet but wanting to get a feel for takers. Like every custom order, price might/should decrease with quantity increase.

Also, we could add pages that members have created to the books. I have done wiring diagrams for the major mods that I have pursued: BWM, HRM, addition switch activated radiator fan. Would there be any suggestion for additional pages?

Thanks,

Andrew Kimball
 
I just received the quotes $89 without binder, 98 with... More than expected and disappointing. The other issue is they can only print 1 sided with the mylar reinforcement. Maybe I will simply buy the paper and print it myself. I did a few pages with 20 lb weight vs the 24lb that would be purchased. The reinforcement did not melt with a personal printer. My 20 lb weight paper was not heavy enough as the ink is clearly visible on the other side. Printing on the back of the page with an image just would not work at 20 lbs.

All the printing stays clear of the mylar on both sides of the page. I made sure of that when editing the original scans.
 
I know the amount of effort this has taken. As we are generally so far apart, perhaps making the file available in a few different resolutions of PDF would allow us all to make the prints we can each afford?

Additionally Brad Artique would likely be happy to host at least one version of your files on the Mira Fiori site where he is building a significant library of manuals. He does have a 74-78 manual but it would be worthwhile to see the difference in quality. Having the best one up and available to users would the best for all.

I would appreciate having a copy of yours if you would be so kind.

I would also be happy to host the files on my Dropbox account as well.

Thank you
 
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Maybe a digital copy would be best. Beyond the tedious scanning of the book, everything was either easy or a new and useful skill to learn. Editing mass pages of a black and white document is easy. Basically I took the ~10% of the darkest grays and made them black and the ~10% of the lightest grays and made them white. A few pages I need to work on still that need full white squares covering old brown splotches newly made black. I am having issues with saving the image resolution for these. JPEGs like to blur and create shadows. My original scans were in JPEG which is fine but with each edit they get blurrier. Editing the color page is much more difficult and I dont think I could repeat what I did to clear that one up.

I was hoping printed OEM books wouldn't cost double what it would to buy a new Haynes Manual.
 
If You could share those files on dropbox which needs editing, I could help. It would be better to get those jpeg which are in unedited after scanning.

I'm product designer, can help with Adobe Ilustrator, Photoshop and Solidworks(3D modelling).
 
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