My water pump was a leaky mess, so I opted to do the garden hose cooling system. Worked fine, but if I had it to do over again I might have put up with the leak and just run it for initial testing.
Once I verified the engine would run, I used some of my garden hose plumbing as the means to flush both directions (in the top and out the block drain and vise versa) multiple times to degunk the water jackets. Used a bunch of white vinegar for that task and a cheap garage sale swimming pool pump to do a continuous loop for a few hours.
Getting ready to try a restart after replacing water pump, radiator, and manifolds. Have a pantyhose filter rigged into top radiator hose to catch any remaining rust flakes (there will be some, I'm sure). Curious to see how that will work.
