Hi Stacka, Sorry to hear that your back has caused you to have to give the job away. A ampmeter is always connected in series I.e. one lead to the wire and the other to the postive side of the battery which registers the milli amps passing through the circuit- to connect the ampmeter to the frame or earth is not good form and can destroy the instrument. The volt meter on the other hand is connected in parallel i.e one lead to live and one to earth or frame. When checking for shorts with the ampmeter be aware that many do not have the fine readings required to pick up a very small draw and can throw you a curve ball. Take it carefully and write down what you have done with fuses etc until you get to the bottom of it. I am sure that some here will have dealt with the same issue if the alarm is the inherent cause of the fault.
Cheers
Kent
