Appreciate the thoughts. The thermostat I doubt is in backwards. I wasnt' having a problem with the engine heat or the cabin heat prior to tearing into the block heater. So nothing has changed the orientation of the thermostat in this process.
I've currently got the front end blocked up at about a 10% grade, fired it up with the radiator cap off, with the heater set to high and ran it until the engine temp gauge hit about 105 C and still wasn't kickin out any heat and the coolant system wasn't burping any air. After the way the temp spiked on me previously I'm a bit leery of lettin it get to high up. It normally operates around 95-100 C. Any further thoughts I'm open too.


Jim