All great ideas, and they may work for somebody, but i have figured out my problem (finally!). I pulled the connector off the coolant temp sensor in the overflow tank, and it had coolant in the connector. Apparently my "new" one isn't that great, so i cleaned the original one up and put it back in. It ran cool all the way to work, never went above the light! Obviously, coolant in the connector caused the gauge to go bonkers. Thanks for all the help with this!!
Now, i just gotta get the A/C working! :shock: