Wow Guys! I didn't know that I was going to open a big can of worms on here over how big is too big without permits, etc!!
Cody - thanks for posting that link to the ramp manufacturer/retailer - man those are some heavy duty ramps! In the one picture the driver has all of the front weight of the HEMTT Tanker on the front most axle and in turn on one point of the ramps (not spread out over 4 tires instead of 2) - wow!
OK - well I might as well let the cat out of the bag before some folks run out of popcorn! I ended up buying the M985 HEMTT Cargo Truck out of Warner Robins, GA.
At the time, the big girl was not running and had a few flat tires. I had some pretty good feeling feedback from the GL site manager about the state of the truck so I figured that I would put a little time into the rig while the EUC was in review. The site manager, John McGee, was excellent and initially gave me a suggestion for a reputable Wrecker/Recovery company who gave me a pretty reasonable price to have the truck tugged to their yard and then loaded upon arrival of the trucking company. Well, had the time while awaiting EUC, so another call to John got me a good heavy truck tire service company. Excellent price to run down to the base - deal with base access (again, thanks to John) and repair four of the big shoes on her (actually, they said that it was mostly valve stem issues, but they still had to pull two of the fronts off the hubs for access). So she was then sitting high and proud again waiting for a taxi. Well, still had some time awaiting EUC, so the guys at the tire shop gave me a couple heavy diesel mechanics to call in the area. One of the shops seemed on it and had the time, so another call to John got them on base and wrenches a-flyin'. The guys just called me late this afternoon that they got her running without too much trouble. I guess they had a little excitement as they had to kind of pack up for a bit for some type of "land mine sweep/caution/warning" on base - once that had cleared, they could finish - deffinitely not your typical service call! Not too bad - they said that it already had fuel (kind of surprising) and the batteries were still up (really surprising) and they just had to use an external electric fuel pump to prime the injectors and mechanical fuel pump. The guys who ran it out of fuel must have been like me and not known that the old Detroits do not have enough "draw" and so WILL NOT self prime. So, learning moment to all of us out there (who don't already know better) who have the old Detroits - DO NOT run them out of fuel - PITA!
So anyways, the latest update is that she is up and running and waiting for a shuttle to join the fleet.
Thanks guys, Dave.