njspeeder said touch pos side of batt to some wire on starter with jumper cables.

so ...



blue i couldnt get a jumper cable on

top red = sparked

bottom red = nothing


does this mean bad starter?
bad vats?
bad something else?

how about i have to clamp jumper cables onto pliers and touch them to that blue wire? (might fit that way)

 

From that pic, the starter looks fairly old. I would take the starter off and take it to your local Advance/Autozone and have them test it- can't hurt anything and you don't have to worry about shocking the **** out of yourself

If the starter tests out fine then next thing to check is VATS.

 

yea uh. the point of jjumper cabling the pos side of batt to the starter was to bypass vats and test the starter itself..