Dash Gauges ALL died..WT!????

It seems gents that I have a gremlin in my dash... '99 auto 33's etc...

All the gauges (tac, speedo, volt, oil pressure, gas, EVERYTHING) died. Can't find any blown fuses. L/R turn signals, High beam works... but nothing else. I don't believe I left anything hot out to short out under the hood.... anyone else have their dash completely go dead? Personally I don't like electical work at all though I have Gojeeped my head lights upgrade as well as Bretts auto shifter so I and can do simple trouble shoot.... give me a brakes or slip yoke eliminator any day over elecrtical, ya know? Ohh, and jeep does runs fine..???

Any advice is helpful and as always, yea I did search...

no advice but my 98 does it too i belive there is a tsb pertaining to it. mine always come back on eventually and no amount of beating on the dash makes any differance!

Check the braided ground strap in the engine compartment that goes from the back of the block to the firewall. I replaced mine with a short battery cable, because the braided strap had deteriorated. I believe that is the ground for the dash.

There are two self docking plugs in the back of the instrument cluster, jeep had a fix. tsb, that involved replacing the plugs. When I converted my 98 from idiot lights to a gauge panel I cleaned the plugs and 'tweaked' them just a hair to make them fit tighter in the socket. It takes about 20 min to pull the panel, just be careful tweaking the pins or you will bend one when putting it back together.

Thanks guys, I'll check and get back in a few...

mine did the same and i couldnt find any blown fuses, the local shop even ran an electrical test and it said the fuse was fine. We replaced the fuse just for kicks and it fixed everything. So if you have a new fuse replace the gauge fuse and see if that helps.

does the radio still work?

i killed my dash and radio and it turned out to be one of the fuses under the hood

I had this problem on a 98 chrysler voyager. Exactly same thing as you describe. Dash just went totally dead for days at a time which eventually became weeks at a time and finaly months at a time. Everything still functioned normaly...cruise etc.. I did notice I slight decrease in engine performance when this happened.

My fix at first was to remove this instrument cluster (this was fairly simple on the van) and disconnect then reconnect the modular electrical connector with the engine running. for 2 years, and probably 20+ times this worked like a charm. the instrument cluster would always come back to life. Then one day this technique just stopped working. At that point, I bought a used cluster on EBay. There's a guy in California who always has hundreds of clusters listed. I won the auction for $.01 with shipping of $29.95. Guy obviously expects to sell these for the shipping charge.

Another thing to try is just disconnecting the battery for a few minutes. This might reset the BCM. In my application, the instrument cluster is driven by digital communications via a 2 wire CCD bus from the BCM I've heard horror stories of people spending $400+ for a new BCM (body control module) at the stealerships only to have the problem return a few days later.

Since I installed my EBay cluster it's been perfect for 9 months.

my 98 does or did that took off the dash took out the gauge cluster cleaned it all up and alot were somewhat loose of a connection. Put it all back and have yet to have anyproblems. Before when it started to do that a good hit to the top of the dash and it was all good to go. I got sick of doing that so I opened it up and took care of the problem.

Just to let everyone who helped out know...
the problem was two small 15 amp breakers under the hood in the PCM. Thanks for all the help and hope this helps someone in the future!