Pulled the head and exhaust cover, to look at the water passages. Looks like the head is just one big water channel. If I figured out the flow correctly, up from the pump through a passage on the left side in the middle of the cylinders, there's a passage at the top, that is drilled at the top of a channel on the exhaust side, that is a straight shot. I put the red little tip of the hose that is on a can of canned air and it went right through. The channel on the exhaust side, follows the top/back and there is another small passage at the end of that channel that I assume dumps into the exhaust.. And I think that is the loop, but there must be more passages, no? Is that it?
As far as I can tell, for the water passages anyway, I don't think the orientation of the spark plugs left or right would affect that. They were to the left, so - I'll just leave them that way.
Oh, and with the overheating, the blue electrical tape I wrapped around that plug wire, was to put a marker there, cause I knew it would probably overheat, and I wanted to see if it would melt that electrical tape as a benchmark, and it did not. The wire itself, the housing looked to me like heat stress, also known as melting, but it seems to make a just fine spark.
I didn't see anything in here that to me looked like a problem. This motor will probably really like new gaskets and a functioning water pump. I think it will be very happy.
Oh, the exhaust cover was missing a bolt. The threads seem fine, it just wasn't installed. If that a standard size thing I can just get at a hardware store? Does it have to be any particular hardness bolt or anything?