Dimmer switch causes gauges to peg max!?

Ugh, my back is sore...
OK spent some time today:
-Headlight switch connector looks good, no burned areas, etc.
-found a small rats nest of wires from previous owner that was spliced into the 2 prong connector at base of steering column, not sure what that was about, got rid of it
-pulled fuse box down and inspected everything for melting, etc.. it looks fine.
-pulled flat connector that feeds power to temp/gas/lights off back of panel, pulled connector that powers lights out,and reconnected it to dash. Figured it could be driven with those lights out until we fixed the problem but...
When the LH blinker was turned on it flashed weak, intermittent and the gas/temp gauges started climbing fast, hmmm...
Reached up behind dash and wiggled the bulb that lights up blinker, the voltage limiter, few others.
Now it works fine, even after I put the light connector back in to the flat connector.
Feel like it's a fluke, maybe bumped some shorted wires, but so far can't make it go bad. Still need to add ground straps for reliability, but I was getting tired and cold
All good advice, will report back on how it's doing.
Nates68