I will pull the bolts out of the battery cables and clean there too, I had not done that yet.

I used a set of jumper cables, hooked the positive to the post on the starter, grounded it to the battery ground, chasis, and engine. Nothing made it work. I did so with the start not bolted in place, just to ensure there wasn't a bind with the converter or anythig like that. The positive cable doesn't have any cuts or anything like that in it, so visually it seems ok.

Just for piece of mind, hooked up a MP mini-starter that I had laying around that I know is good, it didn't work either.

Is there any other start/safety stuff on the car? It doesn't seem like fiddling with the shifter, wheel, brakes, etc has any effect on things.

I'm just stumped. I'll go check the other grounds and clean under the bolt heads on the cables too. Thanks for the help so far.

So, you're saying that you can hook the jumper cables directly to the cable ends that screw into battery, and it starts right up? Then the problem can only be at the cable ends and how good of a connection they have to battery lugs...(silly side terminal and all.) Or are you using the provided junction posts that make it easier to jump rather than getting to the hard to access batt posts?

buildanother-

Essentially, it still doesn't fire up everytime I hit the key though. But it increases the odds of it turning over. I'm using the side posts, my jumper cables fit on there just as easy as the junction post.

FOUND IT (I hope)!!!! BOTH positive & negative cables had cuts in them. About 12" down from the battery connector. Somebody did black tape them together though.... so how this car hasn't burned to the ground, I don't know.

Thanks for the help.