Running Hot!

After I bypassed the heater core, I thought all was well with the coolant system.  I was wrong.   I noticed it started running too hot again, so I dusted off the parts of my brain that knew how to work on cars and started simple.  First check the coolant.... its was full.  The water pump appeared to be recently replaced, so I wasnt too concerned with that.  Next step,  change the thermostat.  I went with a Mr. Gasket heavy duty 180 thermostat.  It had no effect on the temp whatsoever.  I narrowed it down to the radiator.  I bought a stock replacement from Advance Auto Parts, and set out to remove the old radiator.  Now this should have been a 30 minute job,  BUT, the lower hose clamp broke and took me over 2 hours to finally get off.  After that I was eager to drop the new radiator in....  it didn't fit!  Pissed off and covered from head to toe in grease and antifreeze I took it back,  of course they didn't have another one, nor did the next 3 auto parts stores in the area.  The next day, calmed down and cleaned off,  I went to Pep Boys and bought one of theirs, I could tell right away it was going to be a much better fit.  I also sprung for the Mr. Gasket temp gauge radiator cap, just to confirm the stock gauge was working right.

Here is the inside of the original radiator:

And here with the new radiator in place and a close up of the Mr Gasket radiator cap:

Cooling Problem solved!