this is true but a bit of a pain. the starter is well connected to the motor (lots of surface touching), so running a new ground from the motor to the frame would in essence, accomplish the same thing, albeit a little easier.
i was going to mention this, but I didn't...I thought the same thing and actually turned the motor over w/ a a ratchet on the harmonic balancer bolt...turned fine it seemed. Is there a way I can leave the starter bolted and crank it...just ground it w/ a wire or something? I'll turn it over by hand again tomorrow...this is weird. It's not a high compression motor or anything, it's like 8.8-8.9 compression ratio. Is it possible i'm not fitting the starter in there right? I don't think so since it only bolts up one way.
ill start from the top, which may be redundant with what others have said.
pull the slide on thin red wire off the top of the solenoid. put a test light on the red wire (ground aligator lead on test light) and turn key to crank. if no light at crank:
the neutral safety switch/clutch safety switch is at fault or the ignition switch itself is bad, or the wire from the switch to the solenoid is open.
if it did light the test light, jump the lugs on the solenoid (as you have done). if it starts, bad solenoid.
if still no start: battery, cables and cable from the solenoid to the starter should be checked. also motor to frame grounds.
about your question above: do you mean crank the motor with the starter, but not start the car? if so, leave the key off, put it in neutral (stick) or park. then take the solenoid trigger off (the slide on wire on top of solenoid) and touch it to the battery terminal of the solenoid. the starter should turn over as long as you leave the connector touching. the car wont start since the key is off; no ignition.
if the car does not turn over this way, jump the solenoid lugs.still no go: try a jumper battery, jumper cables, etc (as listed above) to isolate the malfunction.
i may have left something out of this list, but i think i got the big points. it should be simple - 20 mins with a DMM should have you up and running.
good luck.
yeah, double check your grounds. first off is the motor to chassis, I fryed mine, didn't take too much. It's best to run two motor to chassis grounds on 5.0's then check your battery to chassis cable for corosion. but just to get to the bottom of it, it's far simpler to just run a cable from a starter bolt to frame instead of running a cable from each motor mount to the frame somewhere and then stripping the battery cable back or replacing it.
but yeah, you can only get as much energy as can be grounded. the radio and headlights and whatever take much less of a draw than the starter. I think of it like a river, only as much water can flow in as it can flow out. that's why I run double grounds when my charging systems act liek ass.
alright guys...THANK YOU for all of the responses. I went out and threw some jumpers on the neg. side of battery to alt bracket AND IT CRANKED OVER! So it's a bad ground...awesome. I wish I would have known that before I had done all of this, but I look at it as a learning experience. I had never swapped a starter and now I could do it blindfolded I think. Guess i'll go buy some grounding wire and get to work.