all gauges dead unless parking brake is on
 

!!!!PLEASE HELP!!!!
I have a 2000 Dakota V6 that I was driving the other day and the gauges/speedometer/tachometer/ everything went to zero. Also all of the warning lights came on. The truck drives fine, just sucks not knowing how fast your going or how much gas you have. I can start the truck and with it idling push down the parking brake and everything comes back to life. As soon as the release the e-brake everything goes out. I have checked the grounds that I could find and they are all good. I can find no broken or chaffed wires. I also did the cluster diagnostic test where you hold down the reset button and turn the key on. The last thing I saw on the odometer was 999 and then it went dead and has not come back on.
Any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated.

I'm still going to say you have a bad ground. There are two grounds for the cluster. the primary ground is located up under the dash on the LH side, near where it pivots and just above the parking brake. The sensor ground is on the LH inner fender. As you face the truck and look down at the battery it would be to the right near the forward edge of the battery.

The park brake switch is one of the few direct connections to the cluster - the others are from the CCD bus. I suspect that when you press the brake pedal down you close the switch and that the cluster is grounding through it.

If you remove the cluster, pin #5 on connector 1 is for the cluster ground. Pin #4 on connector 1 is for the sensor ground. Both should show continuity to ground.

Cluster code 999 means an error has been discovered.

I attached a copy of the pinouts.