94 astro won't shift out of first gear and the dash quit working

Might be time to part out the truck and look for a new one, or find one at the junk yard and replace those parts. In events like this, it will be critical to find a tech who is very smart with auto electrical and get his advice. Could be expensive.

this is vey interseting I have the a similar situation. I noticed that if I turn the key switch on but not try to start it everything comes on. If I start it the following don't work: no gages or gage lights, no fan or AC, no power windows, it will not shift out of first. I am going to try something to see if it helps me to trace the problem but basically I think it is either the turnsignal relay or the ignition swith on the steering column. GM has a real gooofy way of transfering power through them and I found this same problem on a 2000 tahoe and it turned out to be the turn signal relay assemble was bad.I will let you know how it turns out.

check fuses. not having a spare, i swapped one out of ip fuse to tail light fuse and mine wouldn't up shift. don't know bout windows or heater.

i had the same problem. y root cause was the fueable link that is at the firewall junktion behind the battery. the link will partially fail killing the power. GM overloaded the circuit by feeding the air conditioning and several high amperage draw features through the same line. I bought the factory service manuals and there was a service bulletin describing the problem. the fuseable link cost around $6.00 and you can splice them in easily.