Per Cougar's advice - I had a similar problem with my 1997 Caravan. Turned out to be the connection to the BCM underneath the van. There was a short at the BCM connector. Removing the connector to the BCM eliminated the short.

Not sure if your BCM is in the same location (under the drivers seat), but it is a location that is very exposed to the elements.

When Cougar offers diagrams, take them. I would not have found this without his help. Thanks Cougar!

 

Yes, there was some work done not long before this happened. About two or three weeks prior to this, a lady in the parking lot backed into our vehicle, leaving a pretty big dent starting at the latch to the rear lift gate, and extending about 1-1.5 ft toward the driver's side of the vehicle. We had it repaired, and a few days later is when our problems started. However, I didn't think it was associated with the damage to the rear, since it all went out when we went to turn on the a/c (as opposed to turning on the rear-wiper). However, when we noticed that it was the rear-wiper fuse that kept burning out, it occurred to us that it might be because of the damage/repair to the rear, so we opened up the panel to the rear gate and looked at all the components there. Nothing appeared to be obviously damaged, but just to be sure, we tried it with a different rear-wiper motor from the junk yard, and replaced the other components that are back there as well, and it still didn't fix the problem. Like I said earlier, we also tried it with the motor disconnected, and still nothing.

Yes, I would love some wiring diagrams if you've got them. I'll message you my email address. Thank you very much.

 

Thanks Indymike. Based on cougar's advice, it looks like that is one of the components that our problem-fuse feeds, so we'll definitely take a look at it.

 

Ok, so it's been a while, but I thought I should post what we did with our vehicle, since you were all so kind to help out. In the rear of the van, just above where the jack is stored, there is a large wire harness. When we disconnected the harness, everything (at least in front) started working again. We had already been trying to fix this vehicle for months, and frankly, we had no desire to fix the wire harness. Other parts of the vehicle were looking like they would need replacing soon anyway, so we just sold the van and bought another one. The good news is that since we disconnected the rear wire harness, we were at least able to enjoy a functioning cluster and HVAC control panel until we sold it. Cougar, thank you very much again for the diagrams you sent.