The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay engine wiring

It's an ammeter if it's in the round cluster. Wire per correct diagrams for your truck. They are asking because ammeter and voltmeter are wired WAY differently. It's OK you didn't know the correct name for it. Now you do.

ok so ignition side of the ignition switch to the volt meter?

There is a wire from the alternator to the load side of the ammeter. The ignition wire is on that ammeter terminal also........... and all other loads.

The other ammeter terminal has only one wire, the 10 Ga starter/battery wire.

I advise to not wire anything to the ammeter and install a volt meter somewhere under dash now that you have a higher output alternator and 12V.
You can study how to wire a volt meter on the web. It does not have a bunch of sparky hot load wires to it and is not used as a hot terminal for everything. Better/cleaner wiring. It tells you everything the ammeter did.
At the same time you can install a power terminal block and/or a modern fuse panel to supply fused hot to components. The use of ammeters is not a good idea anymore. You will still have it in the cluster.......disconnected.