My E350 7.3l van has sat for a week while i was away, and when i came back, the truck was totally dead. Whan i tried to boost start there seem to be a major short in the circuit. I isolated the problem to the aux battery. It has totally shorted out (I don't know why). In the process of diagnosing the problem my gauges have stopped working. (Volt meter, Gas gauge, Temp gauge and Oil preasure gauge). Also in the process i did see some smoke come from the dash area. By the way my interior lights did burn out as well.
There are no blown fuses and there is no gauge regulator attached to the back of thr instrument cluster. The dash lights and alll other warning lights do work.

any help would be greatly appriciated.

Thanks