Yeah, I'm trying not to think about what the rest of the block cooling passages look like.  One of my nieghbors who is an old studebaker guy also recommended pulling the freeze plugs. He said you'd be amazed what you find in there.  Sounds like big operation though, I really want to be able to drive this thing to work before the snow starts to fly. 

I pulled the car from my grandpa's barn.  It had only been driven once since the 70's, and that was early 2000 to drive it to the corner to try and sell it.  My grandpa and a friend supposedly used to come start the engine once a year, they wouldn't drive it, but just run it get it warm, then shut her down.  I doubt they did much maintenance, so it likely had the same coolant for 30-40 year while it sat in a barn.