Jason;
If you want to bypass the heater core for any reason and leave most parts in place you could get a piece of heater hose and use it to connect the supply port to the return port on the right side of the engine. It might be a 'tight' U shape so you could use a piece of copper tubing bent in a U shape and a couple of short pieces of hose.
Doing it this way there would be no coolant behind the bulkhead to leak and if or when you fixed the heater core it would be simple to restore.
Just a simple idea from a simple guy.
Regards, Joel.