M20 overheating!!!!!

[ETERNITY]

My 325i m20 has been overheating when being driven in traffic/idle and my indie has been working on it, temp seems to go halfway when driven and Heaters go hot and cold too

Changed fan clutch, had it bled 3x

Changed thermostat and it had it taken out as it was faulty. Was advised to leave it out for now

Suspected head gasket so Indie told me to leave thermostat out and see how it drives and behaves

Still overheating at idle and traffic, heating hot/cold and temp settles halfway when driving at speed

Water pump?
Head gasket ?
Put thermostat back in

Advice please

[flybynite]

Putting thermostat back in won't help as you need it open or out if overheating it helps the car warm up quicker.

Before you go pulling the head off -

Who did the bleeding? If they bled it wrong then doing it 3x won't help. Often the nose of the car needs to be well up in the air either on ramps or a hill or both, heater on hot and massage the hoses. Sometimes some cars can be a pig to bleed

Compression test? Leakdown test? oil in water? water in oil? Not 100% guarantee but if they are all good then unlikely the head.

Be tempted to do the water pump and give the engine and rad a good flushing at the same time. If you take the fan and belt off you can sometimes feel if the water pump has too much or too little resistance if you try to spin it. If the rad does not flush with a hose it may be blocked.

These cars come from the days of people putting stuff like radweld in instead of doing a proper repair, blocks the leak and the rest of the system too.

Lots you can do first to diagnose before anything drastic

[ETERNITY]

Yes will do further tests before we strip the head off

Radiator is 7 years old, so it’s in good condition as car is hardly driven. Just weekends and kept inside

My guess is water pump or blocked rad?

Think I need to change indies too