highway

Click your heels together three times Dorothy!!! It's also surprising to see how many non model builders participate on a model building forum.

Ok, after a quick Google image search, it at least appears to me that the CH, Granite, Titan, and even the Pinnacle all share the same basic cab. Titan: Granite: CH613: Pinnacle: Maybe Eric will possibly be able to find a way to offer all of them, since it would basically be hoods he'd have to get masters of.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think the Granite cab may be based of the CH.

See, you just THOUGHT you were retiring!!! You're going to work harder now than ever, you'll be begging for your old job back just to relax!! Have a happy retirement, and get both kits for your retirement gift!

What are you talking about Johnny, I'm not even half way to retirement and I wish I was back in grade school! I miss the simple life when the worst thing I had to worry about was a pop quiz! Enjoy this time of your life while you can Joe, because way too soon you will have to enter the real world, and some times it can be a nasty world to live in! I wish you luck in high school and enjoy!

Exactly! My fiancee has three nephews that are 5, 4, and 2, and the two oldest boys sat with me at the kitchen table one night watching me put together some of a Hawk 1970 Torino diecast kit. Since no one else in the family builds, much less even seen the inside of a model box, but me, they were starting to grab parts, instructions, and most anything else they could. I was being patient uncle to be and asking them nicely to not touch anything because if they lost any pieces, I wouldn't be able to finish the car. They went to bed and I finished putting it together after that, and the next day I took it out to do it's finished photoshoot, and the 5 year old came over and grabbed it by the roof and moved it back and forth and said "Wow, it rolls" and then he asked me if it was to play with. Of course I told him no, it was to sit on a shelf and look pretty, it wasn't a toy. There was a method to the madness with doing that, though. I was first testing them to see what they would do since it was just a diecast kit and not more fragile plastic, and two if the first thing they would do is try to play with it, and both tests were failed horribly! The moral of the story is if you know little hand will be around, put the models well out of reach of the little hands, and if the the children or even their parents have never been into or around modeling, they don't know the effort involved in building them and that they are not toys.

Hmmmm, I wonder if that's the load I'm going to pick up from Customs??? If so, I'm keeping them all!!!

I third Johnny's comment Austin! It's life, things like that happen. I've had friends do similar things, buy cars I wanted, buy a model I wanted but couldn't get until next payday and they bought the last one first, and even with jobs, but there have been cases the roll has been reversed. They are still friends, and everything else is water under the bridge. HMMMMM, sounds like someone has never heard the phrase "forgive and forget"!

I don't know about other states, but as far as I can recall here in WV, pickups and vans do not even need interior rear view mirrors, nor do they need rear vision from windows. A pickup or van with rear windows can have those windows painted black and nothing can be said about it.

Thanks Doug, but I'm a Freightshaker man! Of course, one of the Kenworth T660s wouldn't be bad either, since a KW is one of the few, if not the only, brands of trucks I haven't driven! I do have to give the 386 I drove credit though, it overall wasn't a bad truck, just rode a little rough sometimes when the weights weren't balanced just right.

Very nice work Douglas! I wish I would have seen this sooner, say in December before I had to get an MRI on my wrist! Of course, I'm happy to that it can be done, I was thinking of trying to build one after I had the MRI done.

Well, as some of you may or may not know, I was driving over the road until I had injured my wrist closing a trailer door last October. Well, after coming home and finally finding out after 8 months all that was wrong with the wrist was tendinitis and a shot of steroids made it feel better, and at the same time I was recovering from a compression fracture to my L1 vertebrae from a fall here at home, I'm getting on the old Greydog (YIPPEE ) and heading back to Springfield, OH to go back to work in just a little over 14 hrs from now. Then I get to see if I can pass my DOT physical and get paperwork resigned and then hopefully Tuesday I will be getting my new ride. I'll try to post a pic or two after I get the new ride, that way you'll know it's me in your rear view mirror!! After that, until I can get something possibly in mobile internet service, and if anyone has suggestions or ideas on cheap and credit check free service feel free to let me know, I'll be just checking in when I can find a free signal. Well, I'm heading to finish packing and hopefully sleep and back to keeping this country running, because just remember, IF YOU BOUGHT IT, A TRUCK BROUGHT IT!!! You never know, it might have even been my truck!

That works too! I've seen pics of his Budds in some other threads and they look fantastic!

Looking nice so far, but if you are using the Alcoas in the back, you gotta steal the wide Alcoas from the Can Do for the front and get rid of the Budds!

That is very interesting information Scott, that explains a lot why the price of the wrecker was stated to be so low. That also explains why years ago I found the Revell USA boxed Italeri Ford Aeromax for $9.99 when other Italeri kits were selling for $30 to $40.

Here, I'll save you some digging, since this has been long dead on the back burner. She got put in storage due to some issues in Dec 2011 and me having to go back to driving this: I was hoping that I could get back to a "normal" life by now, but it looks like I'm going to be getting back in the truck again instead. I just can't get the real one's out of my life!! Anyway, here is the link to the build: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=28849&hl= And the pic of the real one is going to be modified and the pic will have the (hopefully someday!) completed truck in place of the ugly blue one!

I just seen how close I even paid attention to the restored version, they added a new wheellift to it too.

Here's a little inspiration for you William for the KW Bullnose. I'm not sure, I might have a pic of one of those Internationals too, and for Jacob a couple of the Dodges. If you want to look through the pics I took at last years Walcott Trucker's Jamboree, here is a link to the Photobucket album: http://s769.photobucket.com/user/highway76/library/2012%20Walcott%20Truckers%20Jamboree

Yes Chuck, the Can Do does come with parts from the regular Pete 359 kits like the headache rack and some half fenders for the rear and other odds and ends, but the sleeper is actually part of the Can Do truck. As for an extra frame, that's a no go! There are two different sets of frame rails, one for a normal Pete 359 tandem axle like the "Black Magic" or any of the other reissues of that truck and since "Can Do" is a modified reissue of that kit also, that explains the extra parts box fodder, but two complete frames can't be built from the extras. All of the reddish colored pieces in my frame in this pic are from the standard tandem axle frame that have to be used for the tri-axle frame. At least this was much better than the cut in half and reglue frames of the 353 tri drive versions of these Petes to add the third axle!

Actually, "Can Do" was the truck's name. Stepp's even reissued "Can Do"! I'm not sure of the year, but as I was Googling pics of the real Can Do, I found this one that has "Can Do Restored" on it. The biggest changes I see between the two, other than some paintwork changes, are chicken lights on the air cleaners and a whole new lighted front bumper, Alcoa wheels on the rear axles instead of the chrome Budd simulators, and new modern LED lightbars.

Did I start something a couple years back with custom sleepers and bullracks!?!?!?! Nice job on both JT, I just wish I could finish my big Ford someday and we can go get some hamburgers!!

I'm not really sure about the skirts, but a sleeper would be nice to build a Rawhide like these I seen at the Walcott Trucker's Jamboree last year. I especially love the Bulldog that was on the red one!

Not a problem Robert, that is the good thing of driving them as well as building them! I'll have to see if I can get by the local Mack garage and get a couple detail pics.

It rode like words that cannot be used on this forum!!! Actually Jim, it really didn't ride too bad unless I had a heavy load or a load I couldn't (or was just to lazy to ) balance correctly, then she was like a bucking bronco! As for (lack of) power, she had a 425 Cummapart backed with a straight 10 and probably around 2.73 gears, I was too lazy to crawl that far under to look at the axle tag! All I know, since my medical issues are mended and I may be going back to work within the next week or two, I REALLY hope I get a Freightliner or Intertrashinal this time around. The old Classic XLs with 470 and 500+ Detroits I drove in the beginning of my career spoiled me and that Pete or their Kenworth cousins can't hold a candle to those Classics!

That was the last release of it, released in 2001 or 2002, I had to have it since I was driving heavy wrecker at the time!