Red 5 is back (w/ issues!)

[smithma7 at gmail.com (Mike Smith)]

So Red came back from the shop last night. It's running and I drove it
today.  Took my daughter up to the mall (12-15 miles).  Only a few
minutes from the house and I can already tell the temp is higher than
it should be.  By the time we're halfway there, the needle is up to
the red light.  We hit a stop light in town.  In the two minutes we're
sitting there, the needle climbs up past the first wee dot at the top.
 Had to turn heat on full blast (would've felt great in the winter) to
keep it from climbing higher.  Light turns green and the needle starts
to slowly descend as air starts pushing through the rad.  On the way
back home, pretty much the same drill only it never gets below 3/4 on
the temp gauge (stays in between light and first dot by top line).

When I pull up at home and turn it off, I hear no rad. fan.  This
should be working as I had replaced the thermoswitch about a month ago
and it seemed to be working fine before the motor went kerpluie.

Also, I noticed the oil pressure light blinking a couple of times.
Seemed to only happen when at low RPMs / low load on engine when in
5th (~2200 RPMs).  Problems with low pressure?

Other things that need to be addressed:  oil leak from front PS of oil
pan.  Linkage needs to be adjusted as I'm having difficulty getting it
in second and reverse (popped out once).

With this list of issues, linkage is way down at the bottom.  My big
question is where do I need to start with the cooling issue?  I don't
want to drive it till I get this and the oil pressure solved.

Finally, I was talking with someone (at Brian's IIRC) and something
was mentioned about problems with the heater box/core leading to
problems that might killed my last motor.  I can't recall what was
said (or who said it) but hope that someone here might be able to shed
some light on this.  I'm thinking that if this is what led to the
death of the motor, then I'd like to get that taken care of so I don't
do the same to this motor.

Long post for me.  Anyone got any welcome, helpful thoughts on these matters?

-- 
Mike
'86 red 16v: Red 5 (aka der Jahrtausendfeierfalke)
"The world is my oyster soup kitchen floor wax museum." - King Crimson