Chrysler Repair: 1997 Concorde - Instrument cluster malfunction, soldering pencil, cluster board

Question
The dashboard on my Concorde is not working. Lights on dash work but all the gauges (analog) are dead. Odometer doesn't work either. At one point, I could bang on the dash above the gauges and they would come on, but then they would go out. This was an intermittent problem at first but now they are off most of the time. I'm thinking a short somewhere, but the question is where? Have you had any issues like this come up? Can you shine some light on this problem?

Thanks!

Answer
Hi Steve,
I would suspect an "open" disconnection rather than a "short" which is a connection directly to ground of a wire carrying voltage. But in any case the most likely reason based on the history is that one of the solder joints at the place where electrical plugs, of which there are two, plug into the cluster has cracked and thus opened the connection. You would want to remove the cluster and  the plugs and then examine the interconnections between the socket and circuit board, each pin of which is soldered to a hole in the board. If you see one that is cracked then heat it up with the tip of a soldering pencil till it softens, then remove the tip and let it cool. If you don't see such a fault, then do all the 20 joints as described.
That is where I would start.
It is about 7-step process to access the cluster board, so write back with a follow-up question for directions on doing that. Not a difficult job to do yourself.
Roland