Cooling mystery

[sandrune]

So everything when down hill when I was going uphill. Got a fix it ticket for no front plate and then not even 5 minutes after that my heat spiked. And I had steam in the cabin. My hestercore went out. Got towed home and bypassed the core and control valve. Refilled my coolant because luckily most of the hot coolant went out the overflow instead of into the cabin.

Car runs at just under 3/4. Shouldn't run that hot normally if you bypass the core. So I figure something else other then the core and control valve are broken and set out to find it

Change the t-stat. Still hot.

Notice the fan doesn't run faster. Change the fan clutch. Still hot.

Decide to do water pump incase it has the old plastic propeller. Take it out and it had the new metal one. Still decide to replace it because who knows it Still could be bad. Car Still runs hot.

Decide to replace the radiator cause it might be plugged. Grab a new cap and aux fan switch too. Still run hot.

I don't know what else to look for. There's no milky oil or mayonnaise at the oil cap.

At this point I'm thinking of doing the heater control valve and heater core just to help cool it off a little because I know the heater core acts as a secondary mini radiator.

Any ideas?

[efficient]

Maybe the nut on the back of the cluster is loose. Happened to me.
I thought my car was running real hot, I changed parts bled the coolant so many times.turned the heater on and noticed that my needle wasn't going down.was very optimistic about the small nut on the back of the cluster but decided to tighten it and now my needle is were it's supposed to be.

[maxmonster]

Does the temp gauge needle bounce around? When I had a bad ground the temp gauge would bounce back and forth erratically...

I'm sort of in your shoes right now... except my car isn't running as hot as yours... got a new pump coming in the next few days.

[sandrune]

No I haven't checked that yet. Didn't think it was the temp gauge because I can see steam when I open the bleed screw or the expansion tank cap. And it's not bouncing around it's steady. When driving it's just barely under 3/4 but when sitting still it goes onto the 3/4 line. If I rev it to 3-5k it helps cool it down to where it was when driving.

[Hooffenstein HD]

Bled the air out of the coolant properly?

[sandrune]

I would like to believe so. I have a very steep driveway so the front is elevated really well. Know it's a pain to bleed so I've done it multiple times after each part changed.