[Bukowski]

hooray, I got a chance to look into this. long/tedious because I need details:

conditions:
car : sat a week or so (gas stabilizer already ran in entire fuel system).
temperature : about 60 deg F.
battery : fully charged

minutiae because I can never keep electrical stuff straight:
attach red alligator clip to "small starter terminal"*
attach red alligator clip to red pin-style multimeter lead
attach black alligator clip to black pin-style multimeter lead
attach black alligator clip to one of the screws for the driver side (L) fender liner

wrap all exposed terminal/clip/metal on the lead with duct tape.

*looking at starter, there is a large lug/wire attached to the starter by a nut on a threaded post. I think there are in fact two wires and two lugs attached to this post.
there is another wire, but small in diameter/lug size, attached to the starter by a separate nut/post. It is this small post that the red alligator clip was attached to.

multimeter:
Harbor Freight freebie
switch set to DCV, number "20" - so that would be measuring from 20 volts down to zero.

red clip/wire/lead from above: plug into the "V (Ohm) mA" port of multimeter
black clip/wire/lead from above: plug into the "COM" port of multimeter
(tested some 1.5V, 9V batteries with this setup, output seems sensible)

turn multimeter on: read "0.00" in display. might fluctuate a bit to -0.00, 0.01, ...

try a few times:

1. audible cranking/starting sounds didn't let it catch. read over "10.00" on multimeter display.

detached everything, try to start. nope. back to the "click/thunk" then nothing while battery drains down to about 11 volts, then interestingly, stops going down*using yet another electrical testing gizmo not described here.

reattach all leads as before.

2. try again: "click/thunk", battery voltage decreases, multimeter display reads zero, no start.

try a different body screw for a ground with black alligator clip, work it on good.

3. try again: "click/thunk", battery voltage decreases, multimeter display reads over "10.00", no start.

4. try again : same result as (3) above.

that's all for now.