while driving the gauges would all drop to zero briefly under a minute, mechanics are baffled?

The problem began while driving the gauges would all drop to zero briefly under a minute. When this happened, nothing would change about speed or performance except the A/C would stop blowing cold until the incident was over. This happened a few times here and there. Then the vehicle started cranking only sometimes. The only thing that seemed to help would be turning the steering wheel a little from the lock position. Then the issue progressed to the point of having issues getting it to crank at all. Tapping on the dash seemed to help at some point. Had it checked by code reader that showed misfire over and over like 6 or 7 times. That mechanic suggested a wire short. Next mechanic suggested changing the ECM. Next mechanic to change the ignition switch. Next mechanic to change the ignition module. Also, something was draining the battery during this time. So, I have changed the ignition switch, ignition module, replaced the battery, and the last mechanic suggested cluster. Changed that too. I am waiting for a mechanic to come by and flash the ECM. But not confident in his diagnosis either since he said that the cluster needs to be programmed to the vehicle. Pretty sure that's not true. Help! I don't know what to do next.