Re: And the winner of the lower hose battle is:

Nice fit. I recently did the same thing in my Comet. My local NAPA was nice enough to let me go through all of their hoses and I came up with one that fit pretty well. Yours looks great.

Have you noticed that no matter what the brand all of the alumiunum cross flow radiators seem to have that goofy angle on the lower hose connection? If mine were straight I could have used my existing hose or one just like it.

Brian