Radiator flush?

I have a 1948 H and the radiator is nasty inside. I am wondering if I should flush it or will this be tough on the water pump due to all of the particulate matter? If flushing it is the proper thing, what is the preferred method?

BigTone recently asked the same thing about his M and there was an extensive discussion of it, if you search for radiator flush it might bring it up.
Zach

Zach is right, I got a ton of help and you should be able to find it in the archives....There were two options, the first is you can buy a radiator flush from napa and flush the system. The other option (and what I did) was I drained all the fluid from the radiator and block as best as I could, I then filled the radiator with straight white vinegar (about 6 gallons for my M, not sure if its the same for an H). I started the tractor and got it up to temperature and then let it sit in the radiator/block for a day or so....it worked great, the fluid that came out was a muddy, rusty, color and it fixed my getting hot issue (you have to flush the system many times to get all the vinegar out though, i pulled the water jacket and put the garden hose right to it and got even more sludge out of the block/radiator)...what it also did was remove the rust from a couple blow outs in my head gasket...needless to say I had vinegar in the cylindars and oil...I removed the the head and found the blown head gasket, so if you use vinegar be ready to deal with possible issues with blockages/holes being opened up.

I would recommend you read the responses to my posts, tons of great info in there, the guys here really helped.

In hind sight would you have taken off the water jacket covers first? Seems to me that you would be better off running a cleaner through it after you get all the bulk of crud out of the engine.

I have a WDR-9 engine here at my house that is about 3 inches full of crud in the bottom. It is a parts engine so I am leaving it, but it was dry so I used the shop vac. Even if it was wet you could use the shop vac in there it just wouldn't come out as easily. I would squirt some water in there and turn it into a slurry. It should all suck out.

In hind sight I would have pulled the water jacket first, and yes I have learned my lesson. I thought about a shop vac but it seemed like it would have been more effective to force everything out with a garden hose with the sprayer nozzle set to a higher pressure. I just couldnt get the end of the shop vac in there enough but I also did not pull the manifold.

I pull off covers and shove a power washer down in the channels.