So I have a 2000 Ranger 2 door extended cab with 2.5 engine and 5 speed manual transmission. Shows 169,000 miles on the clock. But speedometer and mileage are only working when they want to. Temp gauge is in its own world and fluctuates from dead to normal. Replaced all bulbs in dash, plus checked all wiring to see if that was the cause of intermittent speedo problem. Nope! Thump it and it works for a few minutes then goes out. Changed the sensor in rear end but that didn’t help. Checked wiring and all looks good. All the warning lights in dash took a crap 5 minutes after I replaced them. But back lighting still works. It’s hard to get into gear so I checked fluid in master cylinder. It’s full. In addition, I smell oil or some fluid, but can’t find any leaks anywhere. Checked fluid levels and all is normal so I have no idea what I’m missing. Maybe it’s low on trans fluid? I can hear gears or something in tranny as it spools up... And now I have a loss of power when I try to take off. Bunch of things going wrong at once.
As it stands I have to rebuild front end, put in new clutch, slave cylinder, etc. And figure out the electrical crap. Not real enthusiastic about this truck right now. First Ranger I have ever owned.

Thanks for the welcome and info! I agree that the vehicle is not in great shape. Needs quite a bit to be decent in my opinion. I am mechanically inclined and have worked on a lot of my own stuff so I am up to the challenge, as long as I can get something fixed and move to something else. Had the issue with vacuum leak which only allowed air to come out of defrost vents, but I got that addressed and moved to the cluster issue. But I could not make any headway before more stuff arose. I don’t have the money to replace things it could be, so I have to narrow it down to definite sources of problems and fix that. For example, if my slave cylinder was bad and I had the transmission out I would want to replace clutch and all while I had it out just for peace of mind and reduce the work of pulling it again in a few months. But I can’t do that right now, so I have to be sure I’m fixing only what I have to. I will certainly look into what you specified.
I was hoping to find a wrecked donor vehicle for cheap to scavenge parts because the price for some stuff is ridiculous. I have been on auction sites looking but no luck yet.