Nothing is overly strange if you have a 12+ being grounded. It is probably messing with every system going.

If I get this right..you are running the car at 250F? Do you believe the gauge to be wrong?

What had actually happened was that a wire had broken, but just internally. We're going to fix it, but while it had the circuit opened, the fans went down to some slow, slow speed. Now, though, the engine runs below 200F with a 180 thermostat.