wiring question
Please excuse my ignorance as I am trying to learn about the electrical functions (electrically challenged) lol. I just have the cheap harbor freight multimeter and I followed the directions I found online. I put it on the settings as directed touched the 2 leads together to check goes to zero. Now when I check the gage like you said the reading does not change so should it go to zero or hold. Sorry not trying to be a pain
you really need to do an internet search on use of a multimeter. There are books written. Different meters are different, the short story:
1...Shorting the leads together in the ohms / resistance function should give a very low reading, not necessarily zero, because of TEST LEADS RESISTANCE, and also because any meter gets more inaccurate at very low resistance. That condition is "zero resistance", continuity, a short/ shorted condition. In other words what it shows can mean different things depending on whether you are looking for a harmful short (say to ground) or whether you are looking for operational continuity, such as through a switch.
IN THE CASE of your ammeter, you want infinity (NO continuity) from either terminal to the ground / metal of the cluster, but LOW resistance/ continuity between the two terminal studs
2...Different meters have different indicators for open--leads unconnected, or leads connected to a circuit such as blown lamp bulb with no continuity. Some show "inf" for infinity, some just show a dashed line, indicating that they cannot resolve the reading
3...It is IMPORTANT to understand that low resistance, high current circuits CAN NOT BE reliably tested with resistance readings. That ohmeter may WELL show a low reading with a partial poor connection, and heat up because of it in use, under heavy current draw
A better way, which I speak of a lot here is TESTING BY MEANS OF VOLTAGE DROP
When you have a high current circuit, such as say, headlights, that is powered through the bulkhead (ammeter) circuit, through the ammeter, through the light switch, through the dimmer switch, and back out through the bulkhead connector to the headlights WITH ALL THE additional connectors such as the headlight connectors themselves, EACH AND ALL of the switches and connectors can ADD VOLTAGE DROP because of looseness, corrosion, oxidation, or damage FROM HEAT. Learning to test by using voltage is MUCH MORE definitive and reliable in many automotive electrical problems.
Another example would be ignition switches. You simply can not reliably test function of a high current switch such as ignition switch, by using continuity or resistance.