Alright so I bypassed the heater core by pulling the inlet and outlet hoses from the firewall and clamping a hose barb in between them. No leaks or anything.
Took it out for a test drive to check operation, seemed ok so I went to the car wash. As I'm sitting there idling in neutral, the temp gauge slowly starts to creep up nearly to the overheat zone. So I pull out, shut the engine down and let it cool off a bit. On the way home I notice the temp seems ok while driving, but when i stop at a light it starts to heat up again. Before bypassing the heater core the temp would stay pretty constant near 155F, now its hanging around 210F while driving (higher when idling).
Could it be air in the system? I bled the bleeder screw a couple of times. Maybe I didn't do it correctly or not enough.
On the bright side no more coolant smell or wetness in the carpet.
