I'll give it a shot without the alternator, I'm just worried about messing with the belt. I've never worked with a belt system before, only chains.

 

I dont know what you think that belt is, but all it is, is an accessory belt. it runs the alt, pwr steering pump, the water pump and ac compressor (if you have ac). nothing can be messed up, unless you snap the belt somehow.

as for reversing the flow on the heater core, all i did was take out the inlet tube and outlet tube, and put the inlet tube on the outlet nipple, and the outlet tube on the inlet nipple. i mean all that crap was still in the system, but its better when its in the rad in these temps because its cold out anyway.. just come summer time, get the rad and heater core properly flushed out. i did it myself, but there are shops that do it too

 

I was thinking it was a timing belt, which I've always thought was a pretty sacred belt. I didn't want to have to time or align anything, but it sounds like I can just pop it off. I think I might replace it while I'm at it.

Step one is getting the truck to not overheat, then I'm definitely flushing the heater core as soon as it's drivable.

 

Got the new thermostat in today. I did it without removing anything. It was actually pretty easy to wiggle it out from behind the alternator. Getting the bolts down there was a bit tricky, but what I did was I was able to put a small layer of paper towel over the top of the bolt so it would be under pressure when I put the head of the bolt in my socket, and then I lowered it down into the hole and put it in. If you have magnetic tools, this would be much easier.

 

So far so good. I finished torquing everything down and added more coolant and burped the system. The heat sits a little higher than it did with the old thermostat which was rated at the same temperature, but it hasn't overheated yet, even on my stress test.