Time for a new gauge and fusible link! Thanks Mattax, 67Dart273 and everyone else!
I am now much more educated on this issue and hopefully I can pass it on to the next person!
'fraid so. Now I see in the second photo what you did.
You tightend the studs by running down two nuts over them.
That would work if there is room for the nuts when reinstall;
then use the original nuts for holding the wires to them.
I edited my post to add the link where I tried to measure shunt resistance.
.1 ohms was the resistance of the meter leads. So the shunt is essentially zero resistance when measured with a typical digital multimeter.
People have repaired or reinforced the press in studs. 67Dart273 has posted examples of those. Basically it involved soldering. The trick is not messing up the movement which means taking the gage apart.