A buddy bought a 96 cavalier with a 2.2 in good shape for 200 bucks. It has a remaned head, new thermostat, and I put a new heater core in for him. The radiator fan does not kick in and there is no heat to the cabin. I have warmed up the motor and bled both bleeders at least 15 times. The temp gets high enough that it boils over and just steam blows out of the bleeders. I have gone through 4 gallons of coolant already. I did a compression test and 2 cylinders are 180, 1 at 165 and 1 at 170. I have pressure tested the cooling system to 16 pounds and it will lose 2 pounds in about 5 minutes.
What am I doing wrong? Head gasket problem pushing into the cooling system?

look in the rad to see if the pump was circulating? see of the fan works if you put jumper wires to the battery?

This one fills from the overflow bottle. The radiator has no cap so I can't see circulation.
I haven't worked on the fan yet.

how about once the engine warms up you should feel heat in the rad and such if the pump is circulating properly, seems like something is up with that the more i think about it because the heat in the car doesnt have anything to do with the fan or fan switch for the rad

The radiator gets warm when the thermostat opens. I mentioned no heat in the car because it acts airlocked.

Sounds like a water not circulating through. Ive had a few water pumps where the pump would turn on the shaft or the fins would be completely gone.

I'm pretty sure it'* circulating. The problem is that I can't seem to get the air out of the system.

That'* when this tool comes in handy. Sucks all the air out and refills the cooling system without any air pockets.

there is a cap somewhere even if its not on the rad, so you can run it with that off and the back of the car at a downward angle. if you do that and you filled it with the bleeders open, thats not the issue

cavaliers can be hard to bled the cooling system.jack up the front right side of vehicle that usually helps.