80's ski brendella help

[billdc]

Ok, I have this late 80's Ski Brendella with the 351 Ford and I believe a Borg Warner transmission. Picked it up in the spring and ran it once to confirm it was working, it ran fine but started to heat up over 3K RPM. I stripped the hardware for painting and the interior to repair the floor. Now I'm starting to put things back together. Today I sanded the transom wood inside the exhaust and drain plug and filled that with marine tex. Replaced all the water(except the water intake line) and fuel lines and pulled the thermostat(did not plan on that so I have to pick up a new thermosat on Tuesday). I found some sediment under the thermostat, Is that normal? This boat never had a raw water filter, but the one I have now does not seem like it would filter the fine sediment I found.

This boat was not well cared for to say the least, the PO removed the blower to power a stereo amp. So I thought about replacing the current panel and toggle switches with a combo switch/breaker unit. Has anybody tried this? or should I just replace them separately?

One more subject tonight. Battery placement, it was under the passenger seat(but the seat was not there when I picked it up), So I have to build a seat base. Where is the best place to position the battery? The center section of the floor is removable, so I can drop it down a little into the bilge and allow the seat to stay low. Or I can move it forward of the seat and leave at deck level in the bow.

Thanks for the help. I'm sure I'll be back with more as things progress.