Instrument panel quit working

I have a 1994 Chevy Blazer 4 wheel drive with about 130,000 miles. The instrument panel and radio all quit at the same time. I pounded on the dash and they came back on for a while. I did this a couple of times over a couple of days when they went out and it worked, now it doesn’t they wont work. What should I check first, is this going to be a complex repair requiring the instrument panel to be removed and replaced? Thanks

The connection in common between the radio and instrument panel is ground. Power seems to be separate on its own fuse so that’s likely not bad.
For diagnostics purposes, I’d try to jumper ground from the radio to the frame to see if that brings it all back to life. In other words, find a metal piece on the radio, clamp wire to that and clamp the other end of the wire to the frame.
You could use a booster cable, using only the black lead, to accomplish this.
once you find that ground is bad, see if you can figure out where you may have a loose connection – or just tie a your own, more permanent, ground cable from a beefy part of the dash mounting hardware to the frame.

In lieu of that, hit the dash harder, slowly working your way up to a minisledge.

Thanks I’ll give it a try