Wasn't that hard to fix. The zener was no good. It was letting through about 8 volts. Swapped it for an extra I had laying around and it works now. I guess I am lucky the avr chip didn't let out it's magic smoke
Now the fun part of trying to find a 4 conductor phone wire and I am done. I had to borrow one from a neighbors phone to test it out with today. Tomorrow I will find a good wire somewhere and hopefully mount it in a box and be ready to use it.
I'll post pics after it is installed.