thanks for the info. i found the short, it was in my harness for my o2 sensor.the shifting i was doing before was just jerking the truck around enough to move the short. the harness was routed too close to my exhaust manifold and melted the connector to the wire. the o2 sensor looks new, so i would say some one wasn't thinking when they put it on. i couldn't get just the small section i needed(junkyard wanted $50.00 for the whole eng harness). so i picked up a quick dissconnect trailer harness($6.00) from the store and spliced that in. i got my gages,altenator, and cruise control back. but now i have another problem, i believe its a result of now corrected short. my 1st gear is a dog(auto transmition) and i have no overdrive. i can manually shift to first and it works great. also, it feels like i'm starting from second instead of first. does the pcm or the torque convertor clutch wiring you metioned have anything to do with the problems i have? is it something i can switch out? whereabout are they located? here's what i think happened, the short fried my pcm or something like that. can you help?