advice for flushing cooling system on 66

Hello,
thanks to those of you who answered my previous posts and gave advice on flushing the radiator.
I had some other people look at the radiator and they were a bit shocked to see the sediment in the radiator tubes; so I'm pretty sure this has been the main cuprit of my recent overheating problems.

So I am going to take the radiator our and first try to have it flushed; but I don't think that will work and am planning on buying a new radiator.

But before I get a new radiator I want to try to get as much rust out of the system as possible. Years ago, when I installed my current radiator; I also installed the gano filter and that worked great to keep a lot of rust out of the radiator. But years later, I noticed that the screen had torn and thus little bits of rust had been working their way through the system and into the core.

I plan on getting another filter; but while the system is open and before I take out the radiator I'm looking for advice on what steps to take next if cleaning the system is an option.

I currently have a new thermostat and the housing is still removed. The radiator is still attached to the system.
What should I do before I remove the radiator?
Should I put the system together and run the system with a special system flush liquid (somebody mentioned that there is a solution you purchase but I'm not sure if it would do hard to the system).
Should I just put a hose up to the water pump housing and turn the flow on and detach the bottom radiator hose?

Would I install the new thermo or leave it out before I flush the system (If possible I'd rather only put it back together once as it was a pain getting the distributor out of the way).

Should I just put the system together, install the thermo...run the special fluids and try to flush all remaining debris into the top of the current radiator....before I take it out and clean/replace?

Thanks for the advice!
cheers,
Micah  

I am thinking of just sticking a hose down the water pump and hoping that everything will drain out the bottom radiator hose; but I am worried that I might lodge some material somewhere if I try to reverse flush...also heard something about jamming sediment into the heater core.
Is there a danger of this if I put a hose in the water pump?  

Remove the radiator and take it in for evaluation for rodding or replacing (you'd be surprised how much gunk a good rodding will remove(it really about how tough the brass of the radiator tubes is  and whether or not the tubes are solid enough to take the mechanical forces of the rod out).
Personally, I would put the hose in the thermostat housing (w/o the thermostat)and let the water come out the disconnected lower WP hose. Put your hand over the lower hose and with medium flow input and let the water volume build and then release several times until it runs clear  

thanks! that's what I was thinking about doing...but I heard a few mentions elsewhere about the possibility of plugging up the  heater core or lodging some of the debris elsewhere in the system.

Would this be an issue do you think? or is the system a smooth set of pipes which will simply flush out everything without the risk of things getting clogged/blocked.

Would you recommend maybe filling the system with a cleaning agent first as well, letting it sit, and then flushing via a hose in the water pump?

thanks so much!  

While you're at it, take both heater hoses loose from the intake and waterpump and flush the heater core, one way, then the other. Then, route just one hose from intake to waterpump, bypassing the heater core all together. This will keep the bad stuff out of your core. Then flush the engine. Replace your refreshed or new radiator. Using chemicals, leave that to the professionals. Old cooling systems usually react bad to corrosive products.  

I was hoping to give this a try; but to be honest, I know nothing about the cooling system outside of the waterpump and radiator...I've never taken apart an engine; so I really have no idea on what goes on after it goes into the engine side after the waterpump. I have looked at the books on repair that I have and it doesn't mention much about the heater core hoses and such and there are no diagrams of how the system works or where the tubes/pipes go...so not really sure about this.

I don't really use the heater anyways..it prob is not working correctly anyways and prob needs to be replaced if I were going to do a proper restore and redo the engine anyways..so might just go ahead and reverse flush as is...if the heater gets blocked, I don't have a problem with not using the heater...just hope it does not do damage elsewhere.

Of course I'd love to fix it properly, but that sounds like an entire project that would be best to take care of when rebuilding the engine (which hopefully is a long time from now). I'd like to get it back running again.

My plan now is just to reverse flush through top Radiator hose and out the bottom...maybe vice versa as well...prob attach the system again, without the gano filter and without the thermo....run the system for a while and push the rest of the sediment into the radiator top...take the radiator out and either have it flushed professionally or get a replacement radiator if need be. Either way, it needs to be professionally flushed or replaced as it is right now...so thought it wouldn't hurt to push the rest of the junk into the one that is in there now....

this sound reasonable or is it doing a lot more damage for future causes?  

I was hoping to give this a try; but to be honest, I know nothing about the cooling system outside of the waterpump and radiator...I've never taken apart an engine; so I really have no idea on what goes on after it goes into the engine side after the waterpump. I have looked at the books on repair that I have and it doesn't mention much about the heater core hoses and such and there are no diagrams of how the system works or where the tubes/pipes go...so not really sure about this.

I don't really use the heater anyways..it prob is not working correctly anyways and prob needs to be replaced if I were going to do a proper restore and redo the engine anyways..so might just go ahead and reverse flush as is...if the heater gets blocked, I don't have a problem with not using the heater...just hope it does not do damage elsewhere.

Of course I'd love to fix it properly, but that sounds like an entire project that would be best to take care of when rebuilding the engine (which hopefully is a long time from now). I'd like to get it back running again.

My plan now is just to reverse flush through top Radiator hose and out the bottom...maybe vice versa as well...prob attach the system again, without the gano filter and without the thermo....run the system for a while and push the rest of the sediment into the radiator top...take the radiator out and either have it flushed professionally or get a replacement radiator if need be. Either way, it needs to be professionally flushed or replaced as it is right now...so thought it wouldn't hurt to push the rest of the junk into the one that is in there now....

this sound reasonable or is it doing a lot more damage for future causes?