1995 Jetta overheating

I have a 1995 Jetta GL 2.0 4cyl. with 246000 miles on it. Last week the waterpump went out i was just down the street from home and drove it home with the pump leaking. The car got a little above half way on the gauge but not hot hot. I went out and got a new pump and thermostat and changed them both. now my problem.....

THe car gets hot. gets up to 230 on the gauge which is 3/4 of the way up. the thermostat is on the bottom of the motor(bottom of the pump itself). with the car hot the lower radiator hose is cool like i can hold on to it with no problem. So i went out and got a different termostat thinking i had a fault one.. same issue.. and the cooling fans do come on but not for long. I do have heat and i can get the fans to kick on with the ac on but this doesnt seem to cool the car. Is their a way to bleed the system of air. IF my temperature sending unit was bad will this cause the fans to not come on when they
should and could it be displaying the wrong temp on the dash gauge?Before the waterpump went out the car ran at 160 degrees on the dash which is about half way up on the gauge with the ac runing and just a little hoter then that with the ac off.:banghead: please can someone help me with this.ncramer1983@yahoo.com

Check to see if you got your thermostat on backwards. You can squeeze the top hose and "burp" the air out. It seems to work. You may have gotten a bad water pump. Sometimes the rebuilt water pumps have a loose impeller and the shaft just spins without pumping water. There are ways to check the thermostat. Put it in hot water, measure the temp of the water as you heat it up and make sure it opens when should.

the pump is not rebuilt I brought it brand new they didnt offer a rebuild in stock, and its kinda weird cause it is running cooler now, I found information saying to take my heater cor hose off witht he motor runing and leave it off till collant pumps threw the hose then put it back on and add more collant and this seemed to work. It runs about half way now besides when i stop it goes a little above half way but not much. Thanks for the info and i will make sure to check the waterpump anyways, and the thermostat is kinda stupid proof on this car, the cover doesnt go back on right if you have it backwards. Thanks

I bet you've got air in the cooling system. Turn the heater on and see if you get hot air.
If not, you need to bleed the air out, try massaging the main system hose with the cap off, you'll see air bubbles escape.