Ah, this sounds familiar...
Some background - late last August, on my way home from the cottage (and a good 5 hours from home) in my '96 2.5l SE, I glance at the temp guage and - yikes - I'm having a China Syndrome moment!
After getting a tow to a garage (prety much in the middle of nowhere), the "traditional" 'tour WP problem (no more impeller) was found, and a rebuilt pump installed. Car ran fine, but the temp guage was stuck at 'meltdown', which made for an interesting ride the rest of the way home, to say the least.
Anyway, for a couple of weeks after this, I fight with the coolant level on a daily basis - the light comes on, I add some coolant, and then some blows out from somewhere. Eventually, I catch the new pump leaking from the weap hole and it's off to my local mechanic I go...
This time a brand new Ford pump is installed - both the front and back sections, unlike the first time 'round, where only the the front section (with the impeller) was replaced. Also wound up with a new thermostat, belt, two temp sensors and a hose or two (and the temp guage works again!).
Once again, things are fine for a while, but then my struggles with the coolant level are back. Another week or two of this passes, and now the car is starting to dribble coolant again - back to the garage...
For this go-round, yet another new Ford pump is installed. At least this time it's "no-charge" 'cause the first factory pump is determined to have been defective right out of the box (it was leaking around the impeller shaft, but only when the car was running).
So now I'm on my 3rd replacement pump, and once again things seem ok - for a while. The most recent problem sounds a lot like what you are seeing - the car will sometimes blow freezing cold air from the heater vents at the same time the temp. guage is headed for the stratosphere. At this point I suspect that either a) my new thermostat is now (or always was) junk, or b) there are bits of the original impeller floating around in there somewhere that from time to time gum up the works.
Grrr....
Anyway, enough about my problems
Originally posted by Newguy:
Question 1: Where can I get good access to the heater core inlet and outlet pipes to find out if either are hot. And if the Core or Rad turns out to be plugged and probably hasn't been flushed in so long, whats the best way to Flush both the Heater core and the Rad.
Wheres the locations and descriptions of the pipes that would prove most effective in Back-flushing the system.
I'd like the answer to the first part as well!
For part 2, the Ford service manual is pretty specific that the block/rad and heater core must be flushed seperately to avoid blowing crap from one to the other (and clogging stuff up). I don't have the details handy, but can dig them up if you want.
Originally posted by Newguy:
Question 2: is there a valve that could be stuck closed besides the termostat that could cause both of our problems.
Or could the Problems be from two seperate causes?
I don't think there's any other valve per say, beyond the thermostat (and/or a plugged heater core), and would suspect that both/all the problems are related to the same cause.
Originally posted by Newguy:
Question 3: Could a broken overflow cap cause one or both of these problems
Not as far as I know - if it was a bad cap, you would propably be loosing coolant from the expansion tank before things got too hot.
Originally posted by Newguy:
Question 4: what and where is the fan clutch on this car, and could it cause the problem.
No fan clutch - it's an electric fan - kinda hard to drive a fan out the side of the block after all 
Originally posted by Newguy:
Question 5: Above the rad is a hose with a bleed valve on it I think, Then that pipe goes over to the Right side of the engine into a thermos type looking device, What is it and could it cause the problems
Just a guess, but won't this be an AC line (and not likely related to your problems)?
Good Luck and let us know how it goes!
Cheers,
--
Terry McG
