Hi Jim and everyone else, thanks for the response. I finally checked the connections this morning (was dark before). Attaching pics here. The car has power (radio, lights works). It half cranks but doesn't turn over. I can smell some gas after cranking so I don't think its the fuel pump.

Off the positive terminal, one cable runs to the fuse box. Seems fine. Another runs to starter. Its covered with a casing. Pic below of casing pulled back. From what I could see doesn't see like a lot of rust or corrosion.

Two leads running off negative terminal. One grounded to the chassis. As you can see there's rust here. And the other (coming also off the starter I think? or is that the alternator?) also with rust.

Could those grounds be the issue? Would it be strange for the electric to work but the car not to turn over if it was the ground? Or have stranger things happened? Or would you just sand and see what happens?

 

sorry def negative coming off starter my bad

 

I just put the multimeter on the battery. 12.5V from positive to negative terminals. Is there some way I can test the ground with just one person?

 

Do you have a test light? You can test it from the positive lead to the ground you want to test

 

I cleaned the grounds and same condition. So I knocked on the starter and it slowly, painfully turned over and started up.
Going to make an educated guess that its the starter and replace that.
Thanks for your help yall!

 

Sounds like the starter to me

 

Yup... back earlier... if you knock on the starter and it turns better, there is carbon build up on the contacts in there.
Change the starter.

In the mean time,in the 3rd picture, I would clean that contact and bolt- just to make sure... ( in post #11)

 

Yep it was the starter. The solenoid wasn't supplying enough power it looks like. We are back on the road. Thanks everyone

More of a curiosity question: the negative terminal has two grounds coming off it, one that grounds onto the starter. Does anyone know why that is? Is it just a backup? Or is it doing something more?

 

As far as I know, most cars have 2 grounds. 1 usually goes to the chassis, and the other goes, to something other than the chassis, but that "something" is also bolted to the chassis.
just an extra thing,.. "back up" like you said.

 

It turned out to be the starter, but an earlier question was about having power for all the other stuff but it didn't crank well. The starter takes many times more current than the rest of the car, so a corroded connection might be "good enough" for the radio, lights, etc but not good enough for all the power that's needed by the starter.

The negative side of the battery grounds both the engine and the body of the car. Some cars have a negative cable going only 1 place, then a ground-jumper wire connecting between the engine and the body (engine mounts being rubber). Whichever way the ground wires are arranged, there needs to be a ground connection to BOTH the engine and to the body. Long ago my dad's car was apparently missing a ground cable between the engine and body, and the only connection was the clutch cable. Every year the clutch cable corroded & broke, until he realized it was the only electrical connection providing ground for the headlights, blower, etc.