1994 Ford Escort can't hold a charge, blinkers not working

1994 Ford Escort, 181k miles, 1.9L engine

(I'm not good with car terminology, so please bear with me!)

History:

3 days ago car wouldn't start. When I would turn the key, you just heard a click, but the battery worked fine. My father decided it was the starter, and replaced it with a new one. Still didn't start. He went to the battery and found that three wires that connect to the battery post that were supposed to be touching, weren't. He unscrewed the top, placed the wires on top of eachother, and the car started.

the next day, tried to drive the car, the engine would start put the car would not go out of Park. After fiddling with wiring, thumping on random things (frustration, you know), it started. We found the manual override for the shifter-lock beside the shifter and were able to disable the lock every time by sticking a bolt down the hole.

however, turn signals and tachometer don't work. It also doesn't seem to be shifting into overdrive when I put it into overdrive, it sounds like the engine is running very high but I can't tell because the tachometer is not working. The car seemed to be rather gutless, not willing to drive over 40mph. I was trying to drive it to my father's house when the car completely lost power in an intersection.

my boyfriend checked the battery connections, cleaned them, it still wouldn't start. Finally we were able to get it to start only when it was being jumped by another car, once we detached the jumper cables I was able to drive it about 200 feet before it lost power and died again.

tomorrow my father will be checking the alternator and battery to see if that's where the problem is, but if that is not it then he is not sure how to proceed. I am also curious how the alternator and/or battery would have an effect on the tachometer and turn signals not working, and am wondering if maybe that is unrelated.

i had had an alarm installed in the car and thought that might be the problem (it had an ignition kill switch) but the alarm has been completely disabled and the problem hasn't resolved itself.

any help I can get would be greatly appreciated! I am a full time student and single mom and can't afford to keep replacing parts of my car for no good reason if it is not really necessary.

thanks!