As I've been doing on a fairly regular basis since I got it last year, I took my D100 to work today. ('76 D100 SWB, BB/NP435) Generally, this is nothing to get too excited about but today was a little different since it's the first real heat of the year. Temps were in the 90s and humid, pretty stifling for late May.

My commute between Long Island and Westchester County, NY is 55 miles one way through NYC traffic. The way home took two hours today, traffic was unbelievable, just miserable.

No matter though, the truck handled it like a boss. Gotta hand it to the Chrysler engineers, they did make a robust cooling system. Gauge never went over 195 even with long periods of stop/go/idle during the hottest part of afternoon.

I was concerned about heat soak because before I hit traffic I was cruising for 40 minutes at 65 mph. It was OK though. If it sat for a few minutes, the temp would creep up but the instant I was rolling it was back down to 180.

Cooling system is pretty basic - 26" 3 row radiator, unsure if it's even Mopar or not, cast iron big block water pump and a clutch fan, not even a shroud and an OE overflow tank. The little burlap/insulated material pieces that are clipped to the side of the rad are missing too. I would like to get a shroud working. I have one on the shelf from an A body, I should see if I can make it work.

Guess the real test will be if I manage to tow my Duster to the track this summer and I get stuck in Staten Island on the way home from Englishtown. Guess I'll cross the Verrazano bridge when I get to it.

Truth be told, I am wiped out from today's ride. Constantly working the clutch and rowing that long old shifter in the heat takes it's toll after a while.

One thing I'm definitely not thrilled about is the solid backlight. Life would be SO much better with a sliding rear window. The last half of my drive is directly east so the sun was beating directly on me for over an hour. I was soaked with sweat when I got home, had to peel myself off the seat.

I've mentioned it before about my truck but the wind noise is pretty bad. The doors don't line up very well, they are all bent and dented so there's pretty big gaps in the panels. Seems like there is air swirling around from a few places beyond just the open windows, it gets loud at speed.

One little funny aside to the story - as soon as I pulled into my driveway, I had to go pick up my kids so I literally stepped out of the truck and right into my Mazda. It was like crossing into an alternate universe. A/C is sure nice...

Was a good day in an old truck though, feeling pretty confident about it for the moment.

Thanks for reading.