I am having a problem with my 99 Dodge Grand Caravan, 3.8l. A few weeks ago the cluster/gauges stopped working, they had lights just no tack, spedo, fuel..etc... When driving the van home it was stuck in second gear. I replaced the fuse for the cluster and it worked for a short while, then it went out again. Replacing the blown cluster fuse worked for varying times, but now it blows every time you turn the ignition on. In addition, the problem seems to have spread to IOD fuse under the hood. Not sure if they are related? Anyway, every time I install a new fuse and try to turn the engine over it will blow the gauge fuse and I mean every single time.

I have tried a few things, I heard of a bad ground pin on the cluster board...so I checked that and it was fine. I even tried the replacing the fuse with the cluster unpluged and it still blew. My brother-in-law has a tester and got an error code of P1698. I tried starting the car with the Transmission Control Module unplugged and the fuse still blew.

It sounds to me like a short somewhere. Or is there something else that could be causing this?

In addition when it was working for a short time, my gauge gear display didn't work perfectly (would not indicate P). After the fuse blows, all gears light up, but the gauges still work until restarting the car.

Any advice will help.

 

Update:
Disconnected and cleaned all of the connections near the transmission solenoid pack and it's working again.

The remaining symptom which has been like this for over a year:
When starting the car the gear shift indicates "R", but allows the car to start. If it's actually in reverse, the indicator shows "R" but the car won't start.
So, "P" never lights up (indicates "R" when actuallt in Park).