Registration and Posting Agreement
If your battery is good and you cleaned the terminals, hook jumper cables from your battery to a good engine ground and the starter solenoid. If it starts, you have bad connections or bad battery cables. If it still doesn't start, you most likely have a bad starter. Look at the small wire from the battery negative to the fender. If it's melted, the main ground is bad, and the starter is trying to ground through it and overheating it.
Did you remove the intake manifold to replace the gaskets?The official GM factory 1976 CK Wiring Manual, courtesy of hatzie.Pay close attention and, with the help of a trusted assistant, do the following steps exactly as outlined - don't shortcut. Firmly set the park brake, shift the transmission into park or neutral, and be very careful of rotating belts, pulleys and ring gear while cranking. Take steps that the vehicle cannot move:Connect your voltmeter across the positive and negative cable connections to the battery and record the voltage reading while your assistant attempts to crank the engine.Connect the voltmeter negative probe to the battery negative post and the voltmeter positive probe to a patch of clean, bare metal on the starter motor case. Record the voltage reading while your assistant attempts to crank the engine.Connect the voltmeter negative probe to the battery negative post and the voltmeter positive probe to the starter solenoid small "S" terminal. Record the voltage while your assistant attempts to crank the engine.Connect the voltmeter positive probe to the battery positive post and the voltmeter negative probe to the 3/8" battery cable stud on the starter solenoid. Record the voltage reading while your assistant attempts to crank the engine.Post the results of your measurements, tying the measurements to steps 1 - 4.
... yes I did replace the intake gaskets.
...Connected the multimeter from negative post to negative cable. And it reads 12.8....