Cooling strangeness

[Henn28]

I took my X on an 1100 mile round trip hunting trip this week and just when I was thinking that she could be relied on, she threw a belt 60 mile from home.
Probably my fault somehow in the installation and tensioning of said belt of course. I was able to dribble off the highway and get it shut down quickly, but she did get hot for a minute or so. We'll see what the damage maybe when I get a chance to dig into it this month.

I did notice at a stop for gas an hour or so before that I had what seemed to be an intermittent coolant leak at the top radiator hose connection area. The belt issue seemed to prove that this was from the radiator where the plastic side meets the aluminium at the top, since this was where the steam was pouring forth from! At the time however I didn't know precisely where it was coming from, and it was intermittent. I cleaned it up and then checked again 30 or 45 minutes later and the area was still clean. As I was trying to coax her home, I thought that I must have an overheating issue that wasn't registering on the temp gauge but was over-pressurizing the radiator. Therefore, I put foxwell on it and put the temps on live view. 90% of the time the engine temp sensor was at 219 to 221 and the radiator outlet sensor was between roughly 95 and 110, depending on grade, trucks in front of me, engine speed, etc.

However, every so often I would see the radiator outlet temp rise quickly to 160, followed by the engine temp sensor dropping (!) to 180 or less. Perhaps I don't understand the coolant system, but I'm struggling to reconcile the engine temp dropping so drastically seemingly after the radiator temp increases so quickly. I would think that if the engine gets hotter, the radiator will reflect that same increase as the tstat opens and the coolant picks up more heat than it can shed perhaps. At first I thought it was only under higher load (long hills, etc.), but then it did it on a long flat stretch. Temp outside was 67ish and I was doing between 65 and 70 mph. Perhaps I cooked the water pump bearing, which then caused the belt to come apart. Strange that the temp gauge didn't move a MM beyond 12 o'clock until after it all came crashing down.

Guess I won't be moving on to the interior any time soon. Mrs. Henn28 was very, very excited to come and get me in Baton Rouge late last night. Good times with the X! In fairness though I'm grateful she didn't die when I was deep in the eastern Oklahoma woods looking for quail and a long, long walk from a paved road.

Lesson learned perhaps is that a bit more than 300 around town miles may be needed to shake her down! More to follow I'm sure as I get into it. Thoughts on the above temp strangeness would be appreciated.