Same here! 2000 Ford Windstar that my family thought was demon possessed as the gauges would on start up would bounce all over the place.

Removed the instrumentation cluster, removed the small connector and laid the daughter board over to the side. Found cracked solder around the pins on the marked J4 junction (see attached). Took a small soldering gun ($15 at radio shack) and bit of solder and reflowed these pins. Back in business and saved $600 on a new cluster install. Thanks to whoever found this problem you made my day. Took me ~ 2 hours of work.

BTW in order to pull out the cluster you will have to removed the clear plastic bubble and remove the shift indicator cable as shown in the second attachment. If you have this problem try to fix it as soon as possible as my tach needle was damaged by the time I found this article.

 

Thanks to the posts on this thread, my wife's Windstar 1999 is now usable again. The needle had gone all the way to right and got stuck there and no way to put it in parking position so no way to take the key out. This video helped a lot in fixing it.

I found broken solder joints on both connectors. Pull the steering all the way down, it helps in taking the instruments panel out. Also disconnect the battery negative terminal before starting to prevent the theft alarm staring.