Body ground point.

Usually found on the firewall, between the battery and the heater valve, but really close to the battery. Should have a few wires attached to the firewall with a phillips-head screw. Probably rusted up.

Your battery negative cable should have two wires. The usual heavy wire (usuallly attached to the engine via one of the starter bolts) and a lighter gauge wire which connects to the body ground point.

As Wild said - you NEED it.

Given all your electrical gremlins, if you can get hold of an infrared thermometer, check your engine temperature with that. Unless you absolutely know the engine was overheating (running badly, spewing coolant, all the usual signs)

Cheers
Mike

ok ANOTHER new development......i replaced a few fuses with the SAME size that was in there already and now AS SOON as i turn my headlights on, the truck shuts off instantly. my volt meter and everything just drop to 0. could it be that the fuses that were in there were the wrong size?? does anyone have a picture of the fuse box and or any input on this?!!!

yeah its the bolt holding the starter to the tranny. BUT i have a new development........today i went to start up the sami and it well.....wouldnt start. so i checked, rechecked, and checked again all wires and grounds under the hood. nothing. so then i went to the ones under the dash. started wiggleing some wires around and it started up just fine! so.....i think that this is my issue with the gauge as well......luckly i have been debaiting on putting the like-new spare dash i have in the truck, and it has a full wireing harness attached to it. so if i cant fix the issue easily, ill just swap em all out and go from there.

If you are planning on switching dashes with complete wiring, I would first get a FSM for both years or at least a complete wiring diagram for both years.  It is probably not just a plug and play change out.  Different years and models (on Track/Kicks/Vits) used different wiring configurations on the same plugs.  It is not hard to switch wiring pins to different holes, but you need to know where they need to be switched to. 
Find your wiring gremlin now before the switch, because you will most likely have some issue to deal with because of the change out, and your present problems will make it hard to isolate the new issues.

ok ANOTHER new development......i replaced a few fuses with the SAME size that was in there already and now AS SOON as i turn my headlights on, the truck shuts off instantly. my volt meter and everything just drop to 0. could it be that the fuses that were in there were the wrong size?? does anyone have a picture of the fuse box and or any input on this?!!!

No, fuses just keep you from burning up wires, not your problems.

Have you done the grounds yet??? I feel like I'm beating a dead horse

Wild

yes i have ran a ground to the body (firewall) and still doing the same thing

And you checked all the other grounds on the body? they are
in the front and back

only checked all the front ones. i will check the back this afternoon

There are a bunch of grounds that go on a bolt by the distributor, make sure
those are good too

FOUND IT! a wire that for some reason that was ran behind/under the dist.  had the coating melted and was touching the bock. taped it up/ran it a different way and it fixed the problem!