Escort broke down today :(

Hey guys, just got my learners on Monday :) and have been driving my escort all week, first time driving it and I love it and goes really well, but.. Today I was in peak hour and driving home, and at a set of lights there was heaps of smoke coming out of the bonnet, and then more and more, I looked at the temp gauge and it was on the highest it could go :( pulled over ASAP, turned it off and popped the bonnet and had a look, and it was pissing out coolant from the radiator cap and the overflow hose, relised my fan wasn't working, took a while to figure out that it was the temp switch thats connected to the relay and turns it on and off at certain temps, anyways I shorted it out so it was constantly on and had to put 2l of water into it to get it full. Got home alright, pretty pissed off, and then I was idling it home and relised a tick tick tick noise comming from the rocker cover, the rockers are noisy as is but this was different, could it be a bent pushrod? From the heat? And also I'm just gunna have the fan running off a switch in the dash, but when it's on constantly the temp gauge stays around the first/second line, is having it that low while driving around bad? Or?

Thanks,
Brandon.

I had an electric fan put on my Capri due to space reasions, but it is on all the time to avoid the trouble with switches