Well, back again...

Flushed and filled the cooling system with 50/50. Now the car idles in the high normal temp range, tap the gas and the gauge rockets to overheat. Getting steam out of the 1/4 inch hose (that connects the pipe that outlets cooling from front of the head to hot side of radiator) to the resevoir. The heater does not blow hot. I have replaced the thermostat, the head gasket was recently re-done. The car was fine until I flushed the system. The new thermostat is opening (I took it out and boiled it to test it), the radiator fan comes on, etc. Compression is normal across all the cylinders.

I have seen a lot of posts talking about bleeding the cooling system, some talking about a bleed valve. Is there one? Where is it?

I think the system has air in it, if I can't figure it out tonight I am bypassing the heater core to see if that solves it. Any help is greatly appreciated.

There is an air bleed valve on the pipe that runs from the thermostat housing to the coolant reservoir. There may be others too, any will be towards the top of the system.

Thank you! I still can't find them, I think this model does not use one. Instead there is a nipple on the hard line that carries water out of the head (at the front of the engine) that has a 1/4 inch hose running back to the resevoir. This is the high point in the cooling system, looks like a "self bleeder".

At any rate, on a whim last night I flushed the heater core. After all the peanut butter was out of the core I closed the system back up, topped it off with 50/50, and it seems to be working again.

Thanks for your response!

"At any rate, on a whim last night I flushed the heater core. After all the peanut butter was out of the core I closed the system back up, topped it off with 50/50, and it seems to be working again."

How did you flush the heater core?

I disconnected the soft lines that connect the hard lines at the back (drivers side) of the engine. I pushed water through the heater return line and out the heater inlet line first. The heater return is the one that connects to the thermostat housing. I simply shoved the garden hose against the heater lines. Once the water was running clean I reversed the water flow.

You're gonna get wet, but it works.