The limiter is working. Senders and gauges operate on a 80 to 10 ohms range. A zero resistance short to ground is what sends a needle to max and will fry that gauge eventually. Disconnect the temp sender. switch on, if the temp needle moves at all you have a short to ground somewhere.
I suppose the fault could be the temp sender but most times they fail to open not closed. You could check it with ohms meter.
