Anyone that may be able to lend a helping hand...

I just changed out the alternator on my 97MY Civic DX after having been the victim of an eBay "gently used" alternator which blew out on me a week or so ago. The voltage regulator went out on the alternator as far as I can tell (charging above 18V when given throttle) and a few things happened as I didn't fix the problem as soon as it happened - the only indication I got was a SRS light and a funny smell which turned out to be the battery frying...

The event blew out a couple fuses and after having replaced all the fuses that I can find which blew out, there are still a couple of electrical issues with the vehicle.

1) Speedometer, Tripometer, and Mile Counter are all not working. Is there anything that I should check (other than the fuses) to ensure that some sensor isn't fried from the high voltage?

2) Intermittent wipers are not working - I only get Low/High and the wipers stop mid-motion when the rotary switch is turned off.

I'm not really worried about the wipers as that is a minor deal. I have been driving around lately without the speedometer, and for safety reasons, I know I want to get that fixed.

From reading around the forums, it seems like the obvious thing to do would be to replace the entire IP cluster - but before I go doing that, I want to make sure it's for good reason.

Any help would be greatly appreciated