Battery charger smoke ammeter?

[wkndracr]

So I was working on a 66 T-Bird installing some stereo equipment, and to since the battery went dead, I hooked up a charger set to 40amps. I had it on a while, maybe an hour or so, and was testing the stereo system, and i noticed smoke coming from the ammeter. I took th gauge out, and the coil is definitely toast. Now the gauge doesn't work and whenever you hit the brakes, windows, etc, the interior lights flicker. Could the charger have caused this to happen? I'm assuming changing the gauge will fix the flickering problem. When I unplugged the gauge, everything in the car went dead, so I assume that's a vital link in the electrical system. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[Joe Van Datta]

On a 66 the yellow ammeter wire splices into the black an d yellow stripe main leads in the harness about mid way on the passenger side --you might ck . there. When my ammeter quit working I found the problem there.
Joe

[wkndracr]

Thanks for the suggestion. I actually found the problem to be a poor connection where the battery connects to the starter solenoid. There were 3 ring terminals on the stud and the bottom one would read 14 volts while the top 2 read only 12. I sanded the terminals and everything works fine. Thats probably the weirdest thing i've ever seen. Gotta love working on old cars!