Steve,
The ammeter will definitely get warmer the more current you push through it,
exactly as Bob describes, but not to 190 degrees, unless you're driving it
way beyond its rating.
What I've been trying to get across, is that the ammeter shouldn't be
passing _any_ of the current required to run the air conditioning. Your
ammeter is wired into the rest of the electrical system such that you're not
just seeing the battery charging current, which is all it's designed for.
That Mopar webpage had a link to the Autometer webpages, which in turn have
instructions on how to wire ammeters. If you check your wiring you'll
quickly find that what you have does not match the way it's supposed to be
wired.
Since the wiring was only getting hot when the AC is used, the ammeter could
not be shorted. If the ammeter was shorted you'd have hot-wire issues all
the time.
Best regards,
Theo
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