Thanks guys. That helps. Lots of fun projects to try! When I got the car I pulled the radiator hoses off, stuck them in buckets and cranked it to see if the water pump was working. The pump did circulate fluid but I didnt have any good way to check flow rate, etc. I might as well swap out the pump if I am going to go through the effort to take everything apart as a new OEM is about $80 bucks online. I didnt know you could flush the block. I will definitely try that! My guess is the block is full of crud from the old rad.
I dont know if I have all the the baffling plates in or not. Honestly I dont know what it is supposed to look like. I have a big plastic shroud that goes all the way around the fan and comes in about 4" from the radiator just beyond the inside edge of the fan blades and there is an extra plate ontop that covers the entire top of the fan (I thought the top plate was to keep you from dropping stuff in the fan). Are there supposed to be more plates/shrouds? My service manual just shows the plastic shroud that I have which leads me to believe that the previous owner stuck the top plate on himself.
