Can't help on how to remove the ammeter but for repair,
Bob's Speedometer has had a lot of favorable mentions on the forum for repair of various gauges. You might contact them and see if the ammeter and temp gauge is something they could do.
On the cause it does seem likely that some kind of short caused it to open but ammeters are fairly robust and for the gauge to be damaged it would probably take a fair amount of current. Since you were able to jump the gauge and have things appear to work normally would wonder if whatever caused the problem was also burned open or a wire is damaged and just laying there waiting for a bit of vibration to act up again.
If you do decide to add some extra protection I would recommend a circuit breaker rather than a fuse. A fuse is absolute which means carry several spares in case it blows again and once it blows you are stuck until it is replaced. A circuit breaker in that application will allow you to get going more quickly and can be either a type 1 which is self resetting or a type 3 which would require you to reach under the dash and do a manual reset. On either a fuse or breaker get something a bit larger than the expected load to have a bit of extra room so whatever you use is not working at almost full capacity. For example, if your maximum charging capacity and load is say 20 amps then get a 25 or 30 amp fuse or breaker.
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