Turns out after all the trouble and replacing the stinking mega fuse (a bear to get to) we go to ground out the alternator to see if it will put out the max voltage - its nearing night and as we touch the housing we see a spark. Yea so that shouldn't be there - seems the ground wire for the engine was only occasionally grounding - I am wondering if when they replaced the tranny if they stripped the threads out because the bolt pulled right out. So a trip to get a longer bolt and running an additional ground wire proved to fix it. So 2 alternators later (needed replaced anyway), a mega fuse, traced wires, a pulled cluster and 3 weeks (only worked on it on the weekends) I'm back on the road. I have one final issue though...

Seems when I finished up that now my airbag light flashes on and off. 5 flashes and then itâ??s off for a few seconds and then continually does this. I can't tell if I blew a fuse or something needs reset in the computer (pulling the battery didn't fix it). Not sure if pulling the cluster out did this or what but I never touched the airbag - anyone have any ideas? Thanks to everyone that gave input - it was very much appreciated!
-sarge