Engine Overheating

[megaladon6]

unfortunately a small amount of white smoke at start up can be completely normal due to humidity/condensation in the engine/exhaust or it can be the head gasket. if it does it cold only, ignore it. if it does it hot, especially if it's worse hot---then i'd worry. but, since it has a continuous overheating problem it'd probably smoke all the time if it was the gasket.
a bad cat can cause an overheat but it's quite rare. rare enough not to worry about it.

 

[kingjaydub]

At first I wasn't seeing any flowing through the radiator, so I pulled the water pump off today to check it and it was completely fine. Got everything back together, took the radiator cap off and let the engine run. I got a lot of small bubbles and then the radiator started to flow.
I am getting white smoke when I start it and when I rev the engine, but it doesn't smell like coolant and it seems to go away. I'm not even sure the carb is adjusted correctly, so I'm thinking it may be that.
BUT I was checking the fan clutch and when I follow the directions in the Haynes manual (ie. let the engine run for 2 minutes and spin the fan to check the resistance, then let the engine get up to running temp and I should see a noticeable increase in the resistance) but when the engine gets to running temp, the fan actually spins more freely when I spin it with my hand.
I'm thinking (mainly HOPING) this could be the fan clutch causing it to overheat. Any input on this?

The only things left would be the radiator (which seems to be flowing fine) and the head gaskets (which I'm in denial that they may need to be replaced).