one wire [green] goes to the sender, which is the ground side, the other side [pink] gets power from the ign sw - the
pink wire goes to the driver side/green wire to the passenger side - don't know about yer shop manual, but mine has colors, they're just a little hard for poor eyes to follow and are set in odd places with arrows pointing to the wire
the gas gauge also gets power from the ign sw, and the other side to ground thru the sender - ammeter has a black wire to the starter, heavy red wire to the ign sw and the light sw both
that red wire must be a hot wire from the ign sw or light sw or fuse panel that also supplies the other gauges and hooking it to the temp gauge is grounding it [obviously, given the smokey melt
] - sounds like you need to go thru the wiring - try a magnifier on the diagram, it'll all come clear - and find out where the other end of that red wire goes, randomly hooking things up don't work well
also the 3 dot gauge isn't just 55 - of about a dozen gauge sets I have, roughly half are 3 dot, the others are the 2 dot w/ the center line, and I haven't parted but 1 55 - change may have actually been 58/9, and 5-7 was what all the repro parts were made for, 8/9 only recently started getting it's own parts recognized, like the headlite doors/fenders/park lights
if you need a better wiring diagram, I've got a scan of mine I'll send ya
Bill
