Junkyard Shopping Adventures: D100 Parts For the A100, Now With Bonus LBJ Speech

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin
junkyard shopping adventures d100 parts for the a100 now with bonus lbj speech

On Tuesday, after I got home from photographing today’s Junkyard Find, I got to thinking about the ’68 D-100’s factory AM radio. It looked to be identical to the nonfunctional radio in my 1966 Dodge A100 project van. Maybe the one in the pickup still works, I thought, so I had to return yesterday to grab it.

The radio in my van turns out to be exactly the same type of unit. It powers up, but emits only terrible static.

Chrysler used a seriously low-budget approach to truck AM radios in the mid-to-late 1960s; the entire faceplate of the radio must be removed to get the guts out from behind the dash. This is the front of the radio, minus the faceplate. Note the high-tech source of dial illumination. Dodge owners back in the day needed to be really motivated to change this light bulb, because getting to it requires a lot of futzing with fiddly, easily-dropped small fasteners.

Success!

I also picked up the heater blower fan from the D-100, because the one I pulled from a junkyard A100 over the winter turned out to be just as busted as the one in my van.

Both the fuel gauge in my van and the one I pulled from the junked A100 in February were bad as well, so we’ll see if the low-bidder vendor that made the D-100’s fuel gauge did a better job.

While I was rooting around behind the dash, I found this nice bonus: a Lone Star Beer bottle opener.

I haven’t tested the new radio yet, but I noticed this date stamp when I added the goodies to my A100 parts stash: September 29, 1967.


I don’t remember that day, being only 18 months old at the time, but a quick search revealed that LBJ made an important Vietnam speech on the day this radio was manufactured. History!




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  • Chicagoland Chicagoland on Aug 02, 2012

    "The D-series pick-ups of that era, when equipped with an automatic, also had the dash shifter. Probably cheaper than designing a whole new steering column…" My grandfather's last vehicle was a 1971 D series pickup. It had Torqueflite automatic, with same column shifter as our Plymouth wagon. Maybe Mopar had to make a change from dash to column shifters when ignition key locks were mandated. ?

    • Moparman426W Moparman426W on Aug 04, 2012

      D series pickups with torqueflites used pushbuttons up through the end of the 64 model year, like the cars. I don't remember any after that having a dash mounted shifter, I can only recall them with column shifters. In one of my Mopar Action magazines from 3-4 years ago they have a 64 D100 owned by a gentleman in his 90's, who purchased it new. It is one of only 3 or 4 built that year with the 426 wedge and torqueflite combo. He first saw one in a magazine article in which they did a road test, and he wanted one badly, so he went to the closest dealer and inquired about buying one. The salesperson insisted that no such truck was available, so the guy went back home, got the magazine, brought it back to the dealership and showed them. They contacted chrysler and still had to pull a few strings, but he was able to place an order and it took 4 months for the truck to arrive. He was a construction worker, and he couldn't get any traction with the truck with an empty bed, naturally, so he would add weight in the bed with things from the job site. He would race his co workers on Friday nights and beat them and they had to buy the beer.

  • Athos Nobile Athos Nobile on Aug 02, 2012

    My current car was purchased the same calendar day (but different year) my wife and I got married.

  • Leonard Ostrander Pet peeve: Drivers who swerve to the left to make a right turn and vice versa. They take up as much space as possible for as long as possible as though they're driving trailer trucks or school busses. It's a Kia people, not a Kenworth! Oh, and use your turn signals if you ever figure out where you're going.
  • Master Baiter This is horrible. Delaying this ban will raise the Earth's temperature by 0.00000001°C in the year 2100.
  • Alan Buy a Skoda Superb.
  • Alan In Australia only hairdressers would buy this Monaro as its known as. Real men had 4 door sedans and well hung men drive 4x4 dual cab utes with bullbars and towbars. I personally think this is butt ugly. Later iterations of the Commodore were far better looking.
  • Jeff As a few commenters on prior articles on this site about the UAW strike mentioned many of the lower tiered suppliers could go bankrupt and some could possibly go out of business if the strike is prolonged. Decades ago Ford and GM owned many of their own suppliers but as we all know over the years manufacturers have been outsourcing more parts and with just in time supply there is little room for any interruptions to production including strikes, natural disasters, and anything unforeseen that could happen. When the strike ends there will be delays in production due to parts shortages. It costs suppliers money to just keep making parts and stockpiling them especially when many parts have razor thin profit margins.
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