Like big V8s? Watch this! 

The beat of that V8 and the whine of the turbo are pure music.

Here in Ohio...we LOVE cabovers! 🇺🇸 They’re kind of a thing of the past, but there are those of us who still enjoy driving them. Show us some more cabover action! 😎 Cabovers rule! Make the trip and enjoy the ride! 🥰 Stay safe. Until next time! God bless all of our truckers!✌️

Nice. I always change down for a tunnel blast. Just can't help it.

She sounded awesome in the tunnel

Nive Truck and v8 sound of this Kenworth !! 🚛😊👍 .

great sound cant beat the sound of a v8,scania,cat,detroit.great video ,

He does - and the two trailers and the convertor dolly! I admire the work Chris has put into this entire truck and the tine he takes to ensure it's kept as immaculate as can be!

love the rumble of a big cat i operate a 988h now days but the straight 6 has nothing on the V8 rumble

Hey Chris, Yet another top vid, mate! As my favourite character out of Black Dog, "There ain't nothing like a Caterpillar engine!" - I believe that! There ain't nothing like a 3408 Caterpillar engine! Joe

You can't beat the sound of a big American V8 diesel. These new sixes are sounding more European every year.

Man, I love that ole rig! That's one sweet powertrain set up on there with that air-powered starter 😘

great sound, loved the tunnel footage

Melbourne to Karratha, that's a helluva jag! I've been to Port Hedland and it was a slog by air! Great video! I love trucking in OZ, where you see what the world has to offer with American, European and Japanese trucks, truly amazing and very interesting!

You could always make a CD of the sound and play it back while you're driving !

Most times we stack the trailers at a loading ramp so you've got to be able to back up to the ramp and hook up to the top trailer with the prime mover. One guy actually did put a small drawbar on the back of the dolly so he could push it on, with the main drawbar ending up between the landing legs, but it ended up being too many hassles. On rough dirt roads in the Top End we put the dollies up on the bottom trailer, but the drawbar ends up making the truck overlength and overheight.

Great Video. I just love the sound of your V8!!!

It's easy, you just dop off the second trailer, then the dolly, then back the lead trailer up to the ramp, then hook onto and back the second trailer on to the top of the lead trailer. Yes, I work the truck because without it I don't eat and although I am very particular with maintenance it doesn't require any more work than a much newer truck because I keep on top of everything.

i really like when he's driving with the dolly without a trailer at the end :D

i loooove that sound of the turbo

WOW, Hi Def even. Looked great!!!

I usually get a big container fork to load in on but there are loading ramps everwhere throughout northern Australia or sometime we use a crane if we are unloading where there is one handy.

Love the videos man! This one was back before they put that roundabout in at the Gladstone roadhouse intersection. Can't get enough of that outback Australian imagery...thanks!!!

way cool! My 3406 sounds similar but definitely wouldn't go that fast with such a load! Cat engines are great.

Yes, directly opposite the roadhouse on the Kalgoorlie end of town near the Norseman T/O.

Ahhh, nothing like the good old V8.

G'day! Top notch vid mate.

A proper V8!A much forgotten V8 engine we had in Europe was the Iveco 17.1 litre.That sounded good too!Euro engines are now being stifled by all these emissions reg,so sound pretty tame now,unfortunately.Great vid though mate😎👍!

mate, my boy will like these films, great job with the hd too.

Amazing.... Beatfoul

Thats awsesome

There's still a quite few V8 Macks around over here but you don't see them like you used to. I think just about all the 3408 Cat powered trucks they made are still going strong in Australia.

Australia, australia! Going truck spotting is something I have to add to my bucket list of things to do in Australia, among go to an AFL footy match, NRL rugby league, an auzzie wild life petting zoo and other great stuff! These videos are great! Keep them coming!

Usually there are ramps in road train areas so you just back it on, but we also use container forks or a crane. If you lift it on it's best to chain up the axles because when you have a good look, there's not much holding them up.

Mate, superb... be safe...

Nice video and great sound of Your truck Send You 5*

Cool truck: lots of grunt!

wish the t-line has a donk like that!!!!! thnx 4 the show

wow double tanks , you should have had your cameraman stand on the parking lot because of the creepy crawlies,hello from texas usa

@novakane87 I think they stopped putting them in trucks about 1985 in Australia, not sure about the U.S. They still make the 3408 for earthmoving so no problem with parts.

Hmm Road Train Ey Tunnels West East Blitzzen Others !! OHH YEAAA LUV That " Train " Grummble Luv Ya Work !!!

No, because the core of the engine is common in earthmoving. But the special truck parts like exhaust and intake parts are harder to get but still available ex-USA or here in Australia. I had a new 3408 Horton fan clutch and the exhaust Y piece under the turbo freighted over from your side of the pond.

Cool sound

haha I see that Roadhouse in gladstone SA every morning, goin to school :P and going down through the adelaide hills into Adelaide is awesome wid jack break :P I recon ive been to every where u filmed in the video accept Hay in nsw... Nice video, nice truck.

I'm in the UK & 'Cabovers' are the norm here, because that's what works best here! That's a sweet looking truck & my personal favourite would be a Kenworth T908, it's kind of ironic that they're 'American' made but their best models are the 'Australian Outback' versions, they're what proper trucks should look like imo :-)

@mf6402805 It's direct injection and we put it on CAT's dyno and turned the screw until there was smoke and then backed it off. Turbo is a later type, and we changed the engine from A to B series with the later pencil type injectors.

Yep, you have to look at it in HD because the way I uploaded it, it looks crap in standard def, it takes a while to buffer though, unless you've got a super fast connection.

Thats GRRREAATTT

Missed a perfect opportunity to hang the camera out the window in the tunnel and give it heaps. Would've sounded awesome

@mf6402805 It's got straight thru mufflers but straight pipes would be too tiring as with roadtrains the engines are working hard all of the time. Over here the 3408s are legendary for reliability and they will do a lot more miles than a 3406 (or any other engine) between overhauls.

@MattytheDem Varies a helluva lot because of the different loads we carry, winds, weight, number of trailers etc.

Good for you !

We run trailers to Moama and hook them up there. We go on the roadtrain route via Deniliquin, Buronga, and Broken Hill.

There are a few KW's with 3412's in them around here. They pull 90,000 up 8% at nearly 60mph

Hard to imagine ROAD TRAINS in Whitehall Street Footscray, Melbourne --- but that is what in effect they are. The drawbar is perhaps 1.5 meters long (5 feet) but that is the only difference between a 'classic' road train (A Double) and what you see here. The trailers each carry a 40 foot container - in the 'good old days' I pulled two 41 foot trailers with a drawbar about 12 foot long. Gross weights in Whitehall Street is I believe 72 tonnes -- bit as always I stand to be corrected. They are classified as a Super B-Double and are operated by several container transporters with the legendary L.Arthur (of Footscray Road fame) being the pioneer some 10 or more years ago. Not many operators can reverse them so they are restricted to drive through loading and unloading.

I hate hauling Re Bar ... always end up with uneven bearers & cant get the middle two chained down. Then the assholes will want em sheeted ,( despite the customer wanting a bit of rust so the concrete sticks better ), you then end up on the bed stamping down on the steel ties they use so you dont rip the crap outa ya sheet , this more often than not be done in the pissing hard rain after loading stock that has been stored outside ( in the pissing hard rain for a few weeks) .... yup it yanks my fucking chain guys.

Hi chris. How hard is it to find parts for your 3408 engine? They didn't make a lot in the states either but you can certainly find them if you look.

Are you going amphibious water crossing with the air intakes on top of the cab?

Great job Chris. I love the sound of the turbo in the tunnel. How do you get the second trailer on the first? Do you use a crane or a loader?

Yeah, it gets to 120F over here in summer. In the north and west it is very remote and every year people get lost or bogged on bush tracks and die. Satellite phone or EPIRB would have helped in every case.

I go both ways, depends if I am going to Karratha or Darwin like I did last trip.

Wait until you hear the sound of a Mack V8 or CAT 3408 in real life! Not on a RU-vid video! You will change your mind! We have many Scania V8s in Australia, but they sound.....so European! lol

Question- How do you double up your trailers when in woop woop? Or are there always fork loaders at roadhouses who will do it for a fee? I used to work and contract for TDG back in the early nineties. So many companies been consumed by Toll now. Great vids! Cheers

We came thru Hay the Tuesday after Black Saturday, it was very hot and blowing a gale.

What length is the dolly draw bar? 4mtrs??

Crafers tunnel, I hauled ammonium nitrate into their during the construction.

Was that Coolgardie in the last shot where you were doing broggies in the parking bay? Cheers Ross

Love the 3408. Still rolling?

Over here we talk km / litre, depending on the height of the load and wind etc. it gets between 1.2 and 1.4 km/l with 2 trailers @ 80,000 kg. The new trucks would be about 0.1 km/l better.

Thank You for that, I didn't realise there was a Road Train route so close to Melbourne. At least you should be able to get down and back with the 2 trailers if you get a good run. How are you finding the Roadranger compared to the old Spicer Gearbox?

wiseguy!..lol (no am-fm radio in my truck.. let alone a bloody yuppie CD player...hehe)

@gm16v149Well, so could you tell me what is a average fuel comsuption on average load on average road?? Just want to compare it to what we got in UE ;) Thanks for reply :)

@AlexRyteuBart 3 mpg was the very worst I ever got, it isn't like that all the time. It isn't the weight of the load that makes it bad, it's the type of load and how much wind it drags. The load in the video I got very good fuel consumption because the steel was heavy but low in height.

The 3408s were a great running motor. Yeah, some of them were only like 450hp, but they were still cool because it's a rare 4 stroke V8 that you never see ANYWHERE anymore (E9 V8 mack, 3208s, 3408, 3508 etc). They are very heavy motors, and you could rebuild a 3406 cat 5 times it would cost to rebuild these once.

was wondering if Syd Payne is still driving trucks across the nullabor. Used to drive a Blue Kenworth Aerodyne after he sold a white road boss. Used to speak to him a Kewdale truck stop..This was back in mid 80's though..

No, it's got the Cat Brakesaver which is a hydraulic retarder like they have on scrapers, and the truck is going good.

@kennjohnsen So what is fuel consumption today?? I remeber when we had 38tons, 33l/100km was a good result, but it was few years ago.

Unfortunately my exams didn't reflect that, thanks anyway ;) BTW I love your HD uploads, i'm addicted to road trains. Could you upload an under-the-hood video? An HD video showing your V8 and your 16-speed gearbox would be very appreciated by mechanics lovers like me Thanks!

Well they call it a 5m bar ( drawbar eye to centre of the 2 axles ). The actual bar is about 4m.

Like it.

just a well maybe a silly question why dont you put the top trailer around the other way and back more and leave the dolly on with the draw bar around under between the legs? and also a really cool truck iv got a k100g big cab love it but my heart is with the v8s in a dog there is nothing like that sound at all thanks ..

mad you we through the heysen tunels

You should cut the baffles out of the stacks, or maybe put 6" flat top straight pipes on it! But you know since it's a 4 stroke V8, it sounds pretty good for what it is.

Hey buddy, how do you reckon us in the UK driving in Europe, usually in a RHD. You would manage!

@tonyferster It can be. At times it can melt road tar. The biggest differences an American would notice between the American deserts and the Australian outback would be the wildlife (dingoes, kangaroos, emus and wedgetailed eagles) the lack of cacti, and the surprising abundance of colour, particularly in spring. If ever you take a holiday in Australia, I thorougly recommend the Nullarbor crossing; 2400 miles from coast to coast.

As he said Europe is a completly different scenario. Cities are far nearer here than in US or AUS, and we need smaller machines to move confortable in our industrial cities. Secondly, most European countries have longitud restrictions that ban multiple trailer configurations. Those restrictions are also the reason why 99% trucks seen in Europe are Cab Over Engine, shorter than normal ones. Hope this explanation in my bad english help! XD

Some of the comments are hilarious - a lot of them have never tried to drive with a "Big-Bore" Cat or Cummins, I´ve run with them in their hayday in Canada, pulling B-Trains, 63.500 kg GVW, and nothing would or could outpull them, 3408 Cat is a perfect engine, torque is unreal, and will pull like that all day, same goes for the old style Cummins KTA series - - fuel mileage was allways a factor, but the weight hauled per gallon of fuel was actually decent :-)

Quick Question. How do you go about getting the second trailer to and from Melbourne? From what i remember you cannot hook up 2 trailers til you are north of Adelaide. The only other Kenworth with a 3408 cat I know of was one that use to run up and down Footscray rd, Melbourne about 30+ years ago. Great Truck & engine. Don't make them like that anymore.

BUSTED!!!!!! i know where you were hooning round the car park, have been working in coolgardie the last couple weeks

Viddy narce!

Rare on-highway 18 litre Caterpillar 3408 in a Kenworth K123CR with a 16 speed Spicer ProShift PSO-16B transmission!

even though I like american trucks, I still like ths ound of a Scania V8 better, no matter old or new ones

You know, I don't remember these ramps! Can you explain how it is done? A container fork makes sense but without I can't figure. I get back to Australia every year to visit Brissie and Sydney with family. Semi-retired now at 56. Are you still working on/in this rig? I wonder: do you spend more time under it than in it? I imagine the clicks are adding up! Cheers mate!

In Finland,, SISU use CAT engine, 630 horsepower and Eaton Fuller gearbox. Great torgue ja great shift. Summer and Winter.

How true, but some would say they're high cube, low technology..........can't imagine where they get that from !

And it does say in the Info that it is a Caterpillar 3408 18 liter!

it would be nice to see one of these in a fld120

Yep! Right town! Hahahahaha I hide pretty good though!

True

Nice sound, but nothing beats a Scania V8.

@caleb79843 Spicer 16 speed. And yeah, the new trucks sound like a 5 ton Hino.