Well, we put her back together and everything seems to be fine!
I'm figuring it was one of two things. Either the thermostat failed and it was in a closed position, or I simply overfilled the expansion tank like Meatmaster mentioned above.
Bought a new stat. (wish I would have read your post about the Mopar stat prior to buying mine though Mike), put it in, tightened everything up and SLOWLY started adding coolant / water a little at a time. Started it and let it get up to temp, then shut it down and add a little more collant / water......making sure to never keep too much in the expansion tank. Once the car started running at normal temps and didn't see anything leaking, I took it for a spin and everything is back to normal. -Whew!!!
-Scared the crap out of me for a minute there.
I want to thank everyone for their replies. It's these types of incidents that makes this site such a special place to belong to.
-Thanks much!!!
