pull starter, leave wires hooked up, ground starter and turn key to start position and see if starter kicks in. the starter gears may be hitting the flywheel and not engaging all the way. you may have to add some spacers to get it out away from flywheel.

Ugh, ok, thanx

re read posts, you got it to crank over once so I dont see how the gear could be jamming it. its got to be either in ignition switch or battery cable,,, well maybe lol, sh#t man I would be pulling my hair out.

, no hair pulling, but screaming the F word as loud as I can, yeah!
But since thr solenoid engages, doesn't that rule out the ignition switch?
I'm youtubing to see if I can use a clamp meter for volt drop test, since my DMM leads aren't long enough
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/camarof...353c0bee33.jpg
From battery (+) to this IPFUSE box to starter
I can't figure out how to remove the red cap to check voltage drop to ip fuse box, but has ground continuity to driver's shock mount ground wire. F! Is always my word-of-the-day, moreso lately. Thanx all for tips and advice. My "ugh" comment from before was because my hands go numb everytime I have to work on starter , I even upgraded my creeper with an adjustable head rest to take pressure off pinched nerves in neck, oh well. That's why I don't want to have to go under the dash to back probe the ignition switch

for the heck of it try tilting the steering wheel up or down and see if that changes anything. shot in the dark. Im thinking a bad connection on the start wiring to the solenoid, the little wire. testing the power source like you are trying to do is good as well.

Craby, yup, thanx, its on the list, also trying my spare keys (with chips), though prob not relevant since sec. Light goes out and solenoid engages but wtf, why not at this point and lastly seeing if she starts with direct feed from battery with jumper cable .I read a YT comment last night on a volt drop test vid that said some cars can ruin the ecu if you pull the fuel pump relay, real or bs? 'Cause I pulled mine so I could get oil pumped back through system if cran̈ks , but I have to change oil first, but it seems as though I also 'lost' the oil filter wrench in the divorce, lolback to O'R's.

haven't heard of any issues with relay removal harming pcm/ecm

@craby tried moving tilt steering wheel and spare keys...no joy, AGAIN.Got new dvom leads in, been too rainy to tryso far.
A friend suggested the CRANK SENSOR, Haynes manual doesn't list it, at all! Not even on start system wiring diagram. YouTube mechs shows have to remove harmonic balancer to even access, that'll suck, and not in a good way, lol.
Any tips, thoughts, ideas?
Also checked Service Manual couple weeks ago, it also did not mention CKS
, now it's corrupted and can't access
Thanks
Char,

Another bad starter?