So like many here I've been having a no crank issue with my 96SE. So I replaced the battery(needed one anyway). Like many here, after that I still had no crank, so I bought a starter thinking it was that, I took off the old starter and tested it(Hook neg. to body of starter, pos. to terminal bolt, jump the little connection to the terminal bolt). The starter was good, so I hope I can return the junk yard replacement that I bought. So my journey to find the issue continues.

Next I thought PNS switch, but in the middle of investigating that I got the idea to just jump pin 87+30 on the starter relay plug. Nothing happened, I examined the diagrams further to see that it should have cranked because nothing short of a bad wire would stop that from lighting up a good starter. So on visual inspection I saw that all the wiring looked ok, not great, but ok. When I tried jumping those terminals again, I listened closely, what I heard was a quiet, high pitched sound, like a whistle maybe? Anyway, I knew there had to be a bad connection somewhere.

In the end I saw that the ground straps looked pretty dodgey(forgive the pun lol), so I ran a booster cable directly from the alternater body to the neg cable on the battery, made sure relays were back where they needed to be, turned the key and it cranked.

So on my way home(Van is at my dad's place), I grabbed a ground strap for $7, I'm sure it would have been cheaper if it didn't say nascar on the package but that was all the store had. Then I went for a beer with dad, it went down like a $2 *****, so now I'm at home tippin a few buds in celebration of my victory!