farmfuel

If it's back flowing into the resivor, then it could be a bad radiator cap. Is it possible that your engine isn't overheating- and that the culprit is the gauge or perhaps the sending unit? Do what he did, and plug in a scan tool to read what the computer is seeing. To test the gauge, simply unplug the single wire sensor on the back driver's side of #6, and put that wire to ground. You should see the gauge spike.

What about the elephant in the room? You think you may have a bad head gasket or crack in the head? Head gaskets can fail, and the engine not skip a beat- but still overheat. Do a block test with the fancy fluid that tests for CO in the radiator- plugs into where the cap goes. The fluid changes color if CO is detected in the coolant passages.

BuckB91XJ

BlueXJ and XJStryker are your Renix/Closed cooling system experts. They know how to burp out air bubbles better than I do. Like Stryker said, you should have the open system in your 96. So, any air can be burped out through the your radiator cap opening. Whenever I do cooling system maintenance on my 91. I always top off the radiator and run it until the T-stat opens and I visibly see water circulating through the radiator for about a minute or two. Then, I top off the radiator and put the cap on and then fill the overflow tank to the hot mark. Then let it run for another couple of minutes under pressure and check for leaks.

BowtieGuy3

I put that flush and fill fitting on every car I can (I'm lazy when it comes to wanting to pull hoses to F&F). As for Burping, I park mine slightly uphill to help out with it, but I know when burping, it does take a little longer than you'd think, and holds more coolant than you thought...