Electrical system in 1997

I have recently (in the past 2 months) replaced the instrument panel twice in my 1997 Astro. The instruments first began to 'bump' while driving and soon the entire panel went down. No power to the panel. Upon removing the panel, the mechanic said what appeared to be a surge had burned the ground circuit. The panel would be quite expensive to rebuild so we went with one from a used van. Two weeks later the same thing happens. This time the panel was sent to a shop which specializes in rebuilding them and came back fine. Once again the culprit was the ground circuit, and once again within a few days, it crashed again. When the panel is down neither the cruise nor the blinkers work, but the wipers will work fine.

Does anyone have any experience with something like this?