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I must ditto Sean's comments. It is a rare treat to look at some fantastic work, be able to oooh and ahhh over the workmanship AND get warm fuzzies and a smile on my face. The "WHY" behind any build seems to be seldom told but usually the best part. And we surely could not ask for a much better one than this could we?. And so with that I offer my cheers, throwing flowers at the stage, waving the cigarette lighter, assorted fanfare and an unofficial attaboy.. So will it get "Hello Kitty" or "Strawberry Shortcake" mudflaps?. Would be tickled to try and whip you up some if you want. Peace.

This will be really neat and original. Look forward to your fab'ing the dumpster. That will be no small project in itself. Far beyond my pay grade. Definitely one to follow and a guy surely could have a lot of fun with garbage, graffiti, dents, drippings, rust, and all that on the dumpster (if so inclined). Hmmmmmm.....don't know if that is a migraine or an idea coming on. Peace.

Thanks. No progress on the hood. The grille surround and fenders especially are giving me fits. Just need to keep my eyes open and find something that can be "repurposed" into fenders. I lack the tools and talent to whip up such complex "mirror image" parts from scratch. Little parts like power window switches are one thing. Fenders obviously are an area of high visibility and while perhaps the right thing to do, I cannot forgive what would be such an apostasy. A fine line between foolish and fearless and for once trying to stay on the correct side of that line. Need to literally stroll through a junk yard and look inside some old appliances, auto interior parts or ????. If it was 1/25 scale, hacking up a oversized ice cube tray I stumbled across would have worked. Just got to keep the eyes open. Always open for suggestions. Peace.

Trial fit. Certainly not perfection or even close to it, but for improvised scraps, it works. You can see here how the "oops" and why the lower bit of the door panel had to be made considerably thinner to clear the floor board. Plans are to whip up a big road atlas along with a few burger wrappers along with psych ward release papers to throw in the map pocket on the drivers side and take advantage of the "sag" unintentionally put in it. Hopefully something will emerge for better power window switches but for now, it will fly. All is just laid in at this point so when it comes time to paint, it should not be too much trouble. Guess we can tout some 1:1 authenticity.as In the early 80's, GMC went with what was a first one of the first hard "plastic" skinned doors on the General and the Astro. On to the instrument panel or seats next. Stay tuned for more trials and tribulations. Thanks for all the encouragement. Peace

Wow. Had forgotten all about this thing. Never actually saw one, just remember it in the specs. Thanks for sharing. Peace.

I think some of us glue bombers just got taken out to the woodshed.... Got to be one of the best ever seen. Outstanding! Peace

Thanks for the kind comments. Outside the box? More than you know. A dog off a leash is more like it. Anyhoo...as those that know my posts, I aint bashful about sharing the steep ascent and occasional crash and burn of the learning curve. Usually takes 2 or 3 times. And so, here we go. Not too shabby. I guess the truck just wound up being red. Had not planned on that but was curious to see some color on it and it is what is on hand. The panel is still removable so pardon the sloppy fit and still got to whip up some new latches. Might try making some with the heavy foil and see what happens as it is much thinner than the old jewelry stuff laying around. Messed up in having the map pocket down a bit low. Close enough for horse shoes and hand grenades. No, no Lugnut. That is an expression. You can come up now. Peace.

Just experimenting. The thin aluminum seems to be working out well. While it does not show well at all in these photos, with a little bit of touch up and weathering to highlight the folds, it seems to be about right. 400 grit paper is being used for the "carpet" portions which was a really thin, short knap from the factory not like that used on the floor. The upper red "fabric" portion is a rough sparkle black craft paper left over from ??? and then a single pass made with a wide brush of Valejo red acrylic. Plans are to go back over it once thoroughly dry and "dry brush" a checkerboard pattern in with black to bring out the pattern. Once that is done then will fab up power window switches and GMC emblem on the lower portion. The chrome "strip" at the lower portion of the door became necessary. I failed to leave enough depth from the floor pan to cab sides (scroll back up) so it was necessary to keep the bottom bit of the door thinner to allow door closing. What is that saying? Ooooops. All still a trial and error at this point destined to gets lots more tweaks and clean ups, but getting closer. Peace.

Very neat stories and pix. It really struck a nerve within. Great memories like this are like freedom. Treasure highly and never take for granted. Not only a pleasant moment in time for you but an encouragement for those yet to come that it IS possible. . Thanks for sharing. Peace.

Cheers, applause and other assorted fanfare! Would like to know more about the crane. Peace.

Incredible work! You set a high bar for some of us slobs out here to shoot for. Keep it up!

WOW! Just a 2 cent suggestion on the outer ring. A trip to the hardware store and look in the plumbing section for hard plastic washers. Those used on the joints of plastic drain pipes on bathroom sinks come to mind. I seem to recall seeing some in good mom and pop hardware stores of all sorts of diameters. The other thought is I have had good luck with a bit of patience and more patience is bending small Evergreen "L" channel over a piece of pipe after sticking it in hot water and using a hairdryer. Good luck. Most impressive work! Peace.

Very well done! Kind off topic but what color is that you used for the seat cushions? It is spot on. The detail on the suspension is great too. Peace.

Thanks JT. I am not satisfied with the "map pockets".. They need more of a "soft vinyl" shape and appearance. In bumbling around in my typical daze, I stumbled across a scrap of very thin aluminum about as thick as 4 or 5 layers of tinfoil. Very bendable but thick enough it will hold its shape even if bumped by an errant finger. It surely is hard to make something look loosely wrinkled, tucked, or flopped over starting with sheet plastic or paper. If this does not work, then a stab at whiddling something out of wood might emerge. We shall see. Peace.

Good pix Brian. Thanks. I had long forgotten that more often than not, these things had a manual shut off gate valve in highway applications. My final years in this racket was off highway and had been forgotten. I got a 1/16 8V92 I am working on for a General and will need to go back and fab some up. Peace.

Taking a stab at some door panels. A few artistic liberties are being taken and clean up is still required, obviously. They are scratchbuilt and "free hand" out of scraps of plastic, wire, thread, and whatever else Lugnut could find in the garbage. Getting him away from the week old pastrami on rye he found was more of a challenge than anything. The panels are still loose and will remain so until paint and the glass goes in. Windows still have chances of movement so far but the vent windows at this point are simply are going to be a bit much to tackle. The ability to add it in still exists and will until paint, but durability is a grave concern. Certainly am open to suggestions. Plans are to use high end paper "overlay" for the fabric portions as prior attempts at this have gone well and keeps costs down. Surely hope this hinge deal work out reasonably well. Durability is first so if I can place the "dummy" piano hinges on the exterior once the doors are in and fully closed, it should suffice. Only when open should they be "away" but will not be easily visible anyway. Famous last words. All about durability and cost at this point. Delusions of making this thing an RC or at minimum putting it on some sort of powered dynamometer/rollers still run around like visions of sugar plumbs dancing in my head. Peace.

Again, fantastic work. Gonna 2nd Brians comments above. Due to the very nature of 2 stroke Detroits, there is not a waste gate. 2 stroke Detroits want all the airbox pressure they can get as it is vital to blow out the exhaust gasses in the cylinders. They have tweaked airbox pressure up to nearly 50 psi in some specialty applications today. (Straight blowers are less than 10 psi). In addition to more HP, the increase in airbox pressure helps with the venturi effect used to create crankcase vacuum which in a round about way, can be used to reduce emissions. There is a wonderful cute old cartoon made by GM in the 50's on 2 stroke diesels that until I got out, always used when teaching classes on them. It is on youtube and well worth watching. Just remember, 2 stroke Detroits don't suck. They blow. That fact radically changes common understanding of things like boost, waste gates, charge coolers, etc. About the only "weird" add on thing on 2 stroke Detroit turbo's is a "trap door". Common mostly in marine applications, it is a solid steel door that would "drop" right in front of the turbo inlet to shut off air intake in the event of a runaway engine condition. It pretty much looks and operates like a guillotine. One of those things you hope never gets used. It is the last resort "panic button". Now, all that said, I would never go so far as to say no one has tinkered around with a waste gate but simply put, other than as some sort of safety device, the cost/benefit is not there. Peace. Hmmmmm.

VERY COOL! A 6V92 turbo in a 6500. Now that will get the job done and then some! Burnouts and drifting galore! Curious how you will pull off the exhaust. Again, going back to prototype (not that it matters) of those that opted for seldom seen and high cost vertical exhaust, a single "tailpipe" coming up on the passenger side was available that had a pretty nice slotted "chrome" heat shield. The muffler was underslung below the frame rails. Far from the stove pipes everyone likes today or more traditional semi, but actually looked pretty classy and "fit" well. Most of the times I remember it was ordered on those being set up for in town tractors such as beverage delivery. Beer distributors were far more inclined to go for a bit of external glitz far more than most customers. You have done a fantastic job and certainly planted some ideas for future builds on this end. Again, most impressive work! A treat to follow and neat to have the cobwebs shaken loose from decades gone by. Peace.

FANTASTIC JOB! Wanna help fab a hood for a 1/16 General? Seems you are the master at this! Keep it up! Peace.

While it sounds cheezy and flippant, TRY to look at it as a chance to make it better (though it was so close to perfection that is going to be difficult). We all run into barriers. As you so correctly point out, sometimes it does require a reset. It sucks during the moment but something better will emerge. Never give up. Never give in. Never accept second best. Peace.

OK Lugnut, "Ten HUT!" "Private Lugnut what are you doing to my beloved General?" "I think I've been robbed!" "Molasses during a Montana winter moves faster than you!" "Private, your days of dreaming about fiddling with a Hobby Boss Oshkosh M1070 are over!" Said in full Lee Ermey/Full Metal Jacket tone. OK so it is back to business. We have back burnered the hood and fenders and moved back into something do-able. Cab doors and finishing up the instrument panel. The door is outlined with baling wire that will wind up being black to represent the door seal. Yes, that is backwards from the real thing where the seal was on the frame but is an artistic liberty made to simplify life and add rigidity to the door. The inner panel will remain removable until the door is painted. While it may not come to pass, right now it is set up so that the window can slide up and down. If possible, hopes are to make the vent window movable also. About the only detail that will not be put on the door is the actual latching mechanism and striker. The handle/armrest is still in the tweaking stages as dear Lugnut forgot about the door lock pull knob and made it too long so it goes far too forward. Door panel fabric will likely be finished off with some sort of paper as the pattern would be too hard to replicate with paint and plastic. The hinges are "hidden" jewelry box hinges. A "faux" version of the external piano hinge as used on the real thing will be set on the cab later to keep scale. The thought of the moment is the hidden hinge will offer far more durability, not be out of scale, and yet keep costs down. Besides, it is what is on hand. We will see how this plays out. And so, Lugnut is FINALLY back on task. A little rattled by his reality but focused. At least until a butterfly goes by or someone starts messing with him by wiggling around a laser pointer on the floor... And I SURELY would not do that.....errr...yeah.. Peace.

What is really sad is that my best efforts to make something perfectly round come out like this. Maybe a rethink is in order. Maybe if I tried to be off center and "animated" like these, they would come out centered. FANTASTIC build. Nice to see something like this actually built instead of just pictures. VERY original. I am real curious to see if it will have eyes or a face on it. Kind of reminds me of OLD SCHOOL cartoon art when it was done with pencils and paint. Love it! Peace.

A most impressive build! Take the following for what it is worth and tell rivet counting fools like myself to go buzz off. So with that preface, just a bit of 1:1 history info if you want "as built when new" regarding the C60. GMC mediums of this style with a 3208 were built as "Top Kicks" with a few exceptions. They had a unique tilt hood well through the mid 1980's. Pretty cool look I always thought with 4 headlights below the grille. That engine was a very BIG $ option. GM was very reluctant to even offer the 3208. They were years behind Ford in offering it trying to promote the ill fated 8.2 and losing market share. It was largely knee jerk/panic move to get the Top Kick out and offer something diesel besides the 8.2. It was available in a couple of natural aspirated and turbo versions with just a bit more HP than the 8.2. With Ford already pushing the 3208 and IH having the best diesel of the lot by far at the time, the DT466, GM and the dealers were getting their clock cleaned surviving on gassers. Had IH not dropped gassers, it would have been worse than it was. The S series was far superior in most every way. But if you did not want an IH diesel and were shopping price, it was GM or Ford. There were alligator hoods 8.2's early on. In the early 80's, a one piece fiberglass tilt hood that looked just like the alligator hood finally became available on gassers or with the 8.2. Most opted for it and it became standard with the 8.2. If the truth be known, probably in an effort to cut warranty costs in labor hours when the 8.2 had to be changed and worked on at factory expense so much but also to combat the hugely popular IH S series. In the mid 70's, when this body style came out, it seems a 4-53 and perhaps 6V53 series Detroit may have been available early on but that would be rare. The transition from the body style of the mid 60's to mid 70's to what was referred to within GM as the 96.75 (the BBC dimension) was chaotic at first with powertrains and drivelines. House cleaning perhaps. It was not long after the change to the 96.75 that the 8.2 came along with all sorts of hype and hopes of offering more fuel economy and power than the 53 which was indeed a reliable but very thirsty, underpowered, and noisy little monster. Well, the 8.2 was late in coming and was a fiasco. It was available in natural aspirated or turbo. For some reason 190 and 210hp for NA and 235 and 265 hp turbo come to mind but that was a LONG time ago. Typical of GM 4 stroke diesels of the day, it was a disaster. The 71 and 92 were NOT offered from the factory in the 96.75. Now dealers generically called the 96.75 the C60/6500. There was a 50/5500 (rare) and a 70/7500 with the biggest drivelines including a 6x4 with Hendrickson walking beam rears in the 70/7500. All are externally identical. But transmissions and driveshafts capable of handling the torque of 71 or 92 were never engineered in/offered. The 71 was on borrowed time and the 92 was reserved for dealers with the GM "heavy duty" franchise offering the "J series" 80/8500, 90/9500, Brigadier/Bruin and up. And to muddy the water, what was known internally as the "J's" also offered 3208's, 6-71's, 6V92's and along later the L10 Cummins. The "J's" were not subjected to the shame of the 8.2 and by this time, gassers gone with a 427 being the last to disappear for the truly heavy duty line. Back then "light GM truck" dealers had the rights to sell the medium duties like the 96.75 but not class 7 or 8 rigs like the "J's" and bigger. It was a common source of friction trying to keep the heavy dealers at peace and unique compared to the local "chevy car dealer" who seldom stocked anything, had no suitable facilities, and no "truck" technicians and yet would bid on big fleet contracts like states and feds who looked only at price. Family squabbles.... Ford was the same way with the big F series and the "baby" Louisville's. "Car dealers" could get all the F series but no L's. And to really show OCD and go down amnesia alley, the interior door panels and dash you have selected for your fine work date it to earlier production version (pre 1981). If you go with a gasser, a 366 was standard with a 427 offered. A step down to a 350 and believe it or not, even the 292L6 was available for a CREDIT at one point. A couple of other rare quirks were a Viking T bar suspension drivers seat, Sierra Classic/Silverado interior trim packages like the pickups, and a lower torque rated (66 series) Fuller 10 or 13 speed (non overdrives). Most were built with Clark 5 speeds of those most with a 2 speed rear axle. Allison automatics were available. A main/aux trans setup was not offered. Last thing. GM never offered FACTORY installed aluminum tanks or aluminum wheels though they crept into some publicity shots and brochures. "Pretty" exterior options were limited to a chrome bumper, chrome grille, chrome mirrors. So blame the lawyers and family infighting for not having a factory 92 or 71 but back then, heavy GMC/Chevy dealers would have screamed bloody murder if a "car dealer" started peddling C7500's dressed out, set up for, and adequately powered to enter into their turf. And today it is all gone. Bad drama..... Flashbacks....time to go take some meds..... Some facts probably butchered but the truth as best as I can remember it. You build it how YOU want it and that will be best! Heck of great build. Thanks for all the posts! Peace.

Very neat looking. Thinking about trying one of these or perhaps the ROG offshore oil platform just for something different. Look forward to seeing your progress. Just curious. Does it have the Packard engines or any engine room detail at all?

Wet sanding huh? Lugnuts last attempt at that involved innocently building sandcastles at the beach and a big wave coming in. Not pretty. He gets nervous when the sprinkler comes on by his sandbox anymore. Poor Lugnut...