Technical 49 fleetline overheating

Yes you can, but that won't have a bearing on your issues.Take the hose fittings with you to the store and match the threads for plugs. If the loop doesn't bother you visually, it won't hurt nor change anything

 

Those road draft tubes don't work right until you hit road speed and the air flowing past the end of the tube draws the air in the breather, through the crankcase and out the road draft tube. If you have blowby at low speeds you get a car filled with crankcase fumes that smell like smoke if you have air leaks in the body. A compression test and maybe a leakdown test might be in order to see what the rings are like.
As upspirate said the looped heater hose is an appearance thing. You can put the plugs in in place of the fittings (I think both are 1/2 npt) but outside of looks that isn't the big issue you have going.

 

You should find them at the hardware store, in the plumbing supplies. I bought mine at Home Depot. I can't remember the size, but just remove one the the fittings and take that with you to find the correct size. You can also use those steel plugs (those one for steel water pipes). Also, put some copper anti seize on the threads.

 

I think that you should have better flow in the radiator than what that video shows. Was the new thermostat open when you took that video?

 

no.. it was when i first started... i will try again to see if i can get video when motor is hot. maybe water pump is on its last legs?

 

this sort of is what happened.. drove only around one street.

 

The "steam" is blow by. As mentioned the car must be moving for the road draft tube to be effective. Consider a PCV system to **** those fumes back in the intake. If it has a 5-spd then the vacuum port in the intake below the carb for the original vacuum shift 3spd should be plugged, remove the plug and use a hose barb in that port and put in a PCV in the hole where the road draft tube is now.

 

Please be careful with this, if you remove the radiator cap when the coolant is hot it will be under pressure, very dangerous, it will scald you badly. That's not a real beneficial test anyway. Fix the temperature gauge, see if the temperature is OK or not. If it is, the water pump is working fine. When pumps fail it's common for them to start weeping coolant first, letting you know it's starting to fail.

You're getting all over the place, please slow down and be methodical. You started with a concern about smoke or steam, it appears it is just blow by coming out of the breather, a fairly normal situation, especially for an old tired engine, but really any of those old 6's with a road draft tube will do that when no moving at high enough speed to create a draft at the tube and ventilate the crankcase.