mercruiser 5.0 Tstat issues need help

[crazy charlie]

Sounds way better!! Thats good news.If the temp does not climb you should be good to go.If you have some doubt about sediment in the block ,take a look at the petcocks on the block.If they dont look to crusty try to get a box wrench on em and remove em.Take a wire coat hanger and make a right angle bend on it and put it in block and move it around and see what kind of crap is in there.You can run the motor on muffs with one petcock out at a time to flush it out into the bilge.I would only run it for about 1 minute at a time to keep temp from rising too much due to less waterflow.If you have a helper ,they can hold a fishtank net at the petcock waterflow to catch/see what u got coming out and less cleanup in the bilge afterwards.