I work in parts at a Subaru dealership. I work with a guy who has worked at a dealership that carried Subaru since the '70s. He has all the old Microfiche catalogs. Certainly back to the early '70s, including the FF-1 and similar.

 

He will not sell these, and probably wouldn't even sleep well if I took them home for the evening. But I feel tempted to preserve/share these by digitizing.

 

 

There are 2 parts to this.

 

Scanning. This would have to be done here, or maybe at my house. So I'd have to get my hands on a very high resolution scanner. A quick google search says 7200dpi should be sufficient. I see stuff with that or better on Amazon for less than $200. Would anyone be willing to pitch in for this? Recommendations? Better sources?

 

This would provide one huge image file with the entire catalog on it, that would need to be cropped and put into a format that would be easier to read (probably .pdf). With an infant daughter, I probably do not have time to do this, but it would be easy enough to send the raw image file to be processed. Any volunteers?

:banana:I think this proposal falls under the category of, "Did you even have to ask?!"

 

OF COURSE WE WANT THIS!!! 

I have a Microfiche scanner here at my work that automatically feeds, scans and
converts it into PDF. Unfortunately I’m in Australia. I’d be willing to pay for
postage and send back, or buy them. I’d share the files in here when done.

I have the 1979 parts manual already scanned on my computer.

I think this is an excellent idea, although every old part number I've had looked up has been discontinued many many many years ago, this may be different in the USA?

The old books do make interesting browsing, and can be a helpful resource, just perhaps a bit useless as far as their intended purpose. 

You can do that but there are plenty of Factory parts manuals out there.

 

Those same microfiche show up in old dealer stock. Gerard in Australia probably has them online already. Check before you devote the effort is all I’m saying.

I looked up the part number for a 4 blade radiator fan, found one online, and now have it at my house.  Not to say that you could do that with every part, but it is VERY valuable for taking things apart, and putting back together.  There is an exploded view of every single piece on the thing.  I have a Subaru 360 pickup in the middle of a frame off restoration right now, and I have a parts manual for that as well, and use it ALL THE TIME.