We did something similar to that in a trailer park that I lived in when my neighbors heater went out, and the repair people wouldn't come out for like a week.
Once again, I grabbed a radiator from an old car, flushed it out, ran hoses in through a window, and put a small box fan behind it. Outside, we got a decent sized flat pan and filled it with water, then put a pane of glass over it. The heat caused the water to thermocycle through the system during the day, and they only had to use an electric heater at night.
By hanging burlap sacks over the door to the hallway, they were able to keep the living room and kitchen a "livable" temperature with very little heating ability. It really does work out well.
If you're going to be using water to do this, though, please make sure you restrict the water flow so that there is no more water flowing than what is necessary to extract your heat from it. It literally only takes a quickly dripping line to create enough water flow to keep the radiator fairly warm, depending on the temp of the water to begin with.
Anything more, you're just wasting water and heat energy.
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