Dodge Repair: 94 dodge 350 Ram Van dashboard dead, soldering pencil, continuity tester

Question
trying to find out why my dodge ramvan dashboard went dead,dash lights,headlights,still work,runs fine,no speedo,alt,water temp,oil press,gas guage not working,problems started after i wanted to fix my reverse lights that werent working,replaced the bulbs which as it turned out were still good,then replaced my neutral/reverse switch and thats when i found the burned out fuse for the reverse light circuit,jumped in the van to go to the local parts store and found out the dash was dead,im having some problems find out if this year van has pcm-ecm-bcm or just what computer control is the whole problem or just part of it,any answers would be very helpful thanks jc

Answer
Hi John,
As mentioned in my 'expertise' statement, I don't have any truck manuals for the '90's so I will be guessing about this.
The two possibilities are that all the signals to run the dash are digitized and come to it on a pair of twisted wires. Were that the case then there is something that has 'taken out' the digital signal which is on shared network involving the bcm and pcm or at the place where those wires go into the dash circuit board. So you could remove the cluster and look for a twisted pair of wires and try reheating the pins of the socket where they connect to the circuit board using a soldering pencil to reheat the solder joints.
The other possibility is that it all runs on individual wires from the various sources and that there is a common 12v wire that is needed to operated all the gauges whose fuse has blown. So look at all the fuse box fuses carefully to see if any one of them my be either blown or have a subtle crack in its wire. If you have an ohmmeter or continuity tester you could check the fuses to be sure they are patent.
I hope that one of these two approached will pay off for you.
Please "rate" my answer (see the PS below).
Thanks,
Roland