Greetings lads, I'd like to start apologizing for possibly another common theme about the XJ. I've had my 1998 XJ for about 2 years now, been using this forum almost daily, reading, searching, learning. I'm not a mechanic, but love learning about cars (this is not my only vehicle). I do my regular maintenance on my garage on all of them, but can't say that I can open and rebuild an engine.
I've been reading about gauge problems for dozens of hours now. Tried everything a newbie could do: fuses, connectors, grounds, disassemble, smacking the panel, and so on. Searched this forum and read several topics related to the matter, but haven't found any that would describe the same situation I'm having, described bellow.

I had a battery dying on me after a couple weeks of no use of the car. After recharging it with a cable and another car, to get my XJ to the battery warranty shop (they wouldn't come to my location, stupid policies), my gauges stopped working. All lights on the dashboard work, all lights on the car work (turning signals, dome light, fog, low/high beam, etc). Changed ALL fuses on the box on the passenger side and under the hood. Disassembled the dashboard, checked connectors, cleaned it, eletric greased applied, no luck. Radio works, AC works, power windows/doors. Nothing else seems to be missing. While running the dashboard test (hold the trip buttom and turn the key one stop without starting the engine), all the lights light up, but gauges won't move. Is my cluster dead? Shorted after the voltage drop? Should I be looking somewhere else? Any tips would be immensely appreciated. Forgive any semantics/gramatical mistakes, english is not my native language. TIA

Was really hoping someone would point me to what am I missing, or if it's time to take it to the shop. My fear is that since it's an old car, I live in a primitive city, people would probably want to take it all down, and the chances of them not being able to put it all back together are high.

 

I had that happen earlier in the year, feared the worst but I'm sure it was only a fuse. Can't remember which now but sue I posted about it, perhaps in "what did you do today" section..

Not much help I know, but might prompt others to join in.