radiator flushing instructions?

["Joseph Kanellopoulos" <kanellj@domain.elided>]

Dear Digesters,

First of all I want to thank everyone that took the time so far to reply,
which is why I love this place.

since this will be my first time of flushng a pressurized system (only enough
to change the thermostat), is there any special procedure in refilling it?

All I was told is to cycle the system enough times with the filler tank cap of
to allow for the air trapped in the cylinder heads to escape through the
tank.

Is that correct?

The shop manual does not give any special instructions that I saw.

FYI, I put the old pump on (made 3 psi worth of difference at idle with the
plenum hose on, 31 psi with the 020 and 28 psi with the 070 - the second one
is actually the pressure specified in the manual (??)) but that made no
difference.  Pressure with the plenum hose off at idle is around 40 psi (a
little highm the manual said 35.3).

Also for general information purposes I found out that the 070 pump number is
for the Motronic equipped, later model European 75, where as the 020 is for
the Jetronic equipped earlier version (not sure how that affects things). If
someone has a 92ish 3.0 75 maybe they can verify that.

I also emptied the tank again and put "fresh" premium in it. Have already run
through one tank of that and am in the second one.

I got another thermostat and boiled it in a pot having placed a ceramic plate
underneath it, and putting a meat thermometer (120 to 210 F range one) through
one of the mounting holes with a cork after that but leaving the tip exposed
(as well as most of the shaft) and then boiled the thermostat while observing
the temperature so now I know that the replacement one is working correctly
before I put it on.

I will get another fuel filter and test it with the spare fuel pump and the
spare regulator and then replace that as well.

For the obvious (or not so checks) the filter is pointing in the right
direction with the engine idling or slightly reving up (no load) none of the
new lines seem to collapse (which they should not they are F.I. lines though I
went up to 5/16 instead of 6 mm I hope that is ok)

I am now starting to treat this as an independent cooling problem, since
considering the pulley bearing broke off at the same time, and it is obviously
not related to the fuel lines, then it is possible that this is something else
that just also happened to creep out right now.

As a temporary measure I took the sound proofing of the bottom of the hood to
help it act more as a natural heat radiator. I am sure that this does not even
come close to off balancing the presence of the headers..... Can anyone with
the shankle headers on tell me what is the temperature their car will idle up
to when their car is parked during an 80 or so degree day?  Preferably someone
with non-ceramic coated ones.

As a side note observation, I noticed that if I turn the car off and then
return the key to the ignition position then the radiator will stop before the
temperature comes anywhere close to normal (could that be indicating that the
thermostat IS stuck?)

Next on the cooling system.... water pump.

Thanks to everyone for the help and will keep you all posted.

Got to run now....

Joseph
88 cranky Milano Verde

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