97 dodge caravan starting problems

[petwaitress]

here's my problem
occassionally my 97 dodge caravan sport will crank up and die 3 secs later. we will unplug the battery for about an hour (today it took 3 hours) and she starts right up or we reset the computer from the fuse panel. The computer was replaced last year in Oct., throttle body was just cleaned out 2 weeks ago and water pump replaced. I have also experienced the problem where the gauges totally went out after going about half a mile down the road and i hear the muffled sounding misfire occassionly when accelerating.
Any suggestions here would be welcome before i take it to the dealer and spend megabucks ( they wanted 500$ to replace a 22$ water pump /laff).

btw i dont know if this is related but ever since they replaced my computer my radio wont work.

[petwaitress]

To make matters even better now the vans stuttering when shifting into a higher gear, mostly when driving in a stop and go situation around town.