Chrysler Repair: 98 T & C: intermittent no start/cluster light correlation, soldering pencil, socket pins

Question
Where is a body control Module located on a 98 town and
country mini van?

sometimes the car will start and sometimes it will not,
when it dont start the starter will not engage and the
lights in the bottom of the dash will not come on but the
lights in the top of the dash will.

Answer
Hi William,
The body control module is located on the back side of the fuse box that is under the dash. The two units are screwed togeter and also they are connected together electrically so that once you remove the screws you separate them by sliding them apart, vertically. But use care not to damage the interconnectins.
I am not sure which lights you mean by 'bottom' and 'top' of the dash but in any case it may be that the digital data bus wires to the cluster are intermittent or perhaps being shorted to ground due to a cold solder joint between the plug socket and the circuit board of the cluster, and that may then interfere with the communication between the engine and the powertrain controller which uses the same data wires. Other users have suggested that if you wrap on the top of the dash cluater bezel with your hand that this sometimes corrects this poor connection so you could give that a try. Otherwise it would a matter of removing the cluster and heating up the solder joints between the socket pins and the circuit board using a soldering pencil.
Roland