Amazing overheating problem...desperate

friends 383 would blow water out the rad and overheat, was 2 bad head gaskets. he ran it like that for a few weeks, just used a radaitor cap with no spring and a huge puke tank (it was in a 63 300 so had loads of room) it would blow water out the rad into the tank and eventually suck it back up, fine for short runs. Jsut leave cap off and start it, if it bubbles in the rad, you got air ingress from somewhere. His water pump was little more than a disk, as the fins had rotted off! PO had ran alot of straight water in there in its past life.