hmmm, i was always told you flush it the direction of coolant flow. with water or coolant, whichever preferred... and of course its considered hazardous waste afterward. then you would hook it up and flush it the opposite way of normal flow to unlodge anything that settles in the direction of flow and then flush once more the normal direction. try flushing the radiator like that and see if it helps

 

Do you know if the t-stat opens? A simple way to check is feeling the radiator hoses. Grab a hold of the in-flow hose and feel for it to go from cool to hot. When this happens you know the t-stat is good because it opened up and allowed cooler coolant in to circulait around the block. I wonder if the t-stat is bad or you have a severe clog. You said the water pump, t-stat, elbows, were all good and no leaks. I also assume you are not losing any coolant.

 

I would get a pressure test done. If you do that you can test your head gasket. Another way to check the T-stat is to take it off and put it in boiling water to see if it opens.

 

Could be the head gasket or LIM gasket. Also, did you make sure the gasket on your t-stat was seated nice? I know mine was fairly difficult to get it on there good.

 

To check for a plugged radiator. Place your hand on one side of the radiator and then the other. If one side is cool and the other warm, then the radiator is plugged. I was also thinking a head gasket problem. You can test that by doing a compression check. If two cylinders next to each other have way low compression, then the head gasket would be faulty. I would check the radiator first, though.

 

well it's definitely not the t-stat, opens up fine at 195. felt the rad and one side is indeed cooler than the other....I'm thinking that's the prob and will be changing it out this weekend...

 

try to flush it forward backward then forward again to see if that helps first. if it dont. then replace! goodluck