Here'* a couple ways to narrow this down.

Check for 12 volts at the small wire (purple?) going to the starter solenoid. Key has to be held in start position.

Or run a wire from the positive battery terminal & touch it to the terminal that the small wire connects to on the starter solennoid.

thanks guys...will try.
no luck on the cheap dynamite eh???lol

one way to check for a bad starter is to turn on the headlights and then crank...if they dim a little bit, then the starter motor is bad, but if they don't dim at all, then it'* probably a bad connection

uhhhhh even if you have a good working condition starter the headlights are goind to dim....this procedure will tell you nothing

the correct procedure to diagnoise a starter problem is to get under the car with a rubber hammer, and Tap on the starter while someone is trying to crank the vehicle over

i've tried that, and it never worked for me...

you both are sorta right.

In Nicks defense, he is correct in that if the starter solenoid does not engage then the starter won't draw any significant juice and the lights will stay bright. Time to look in the Start/security Circuit. If the lights do DIM, this does not mean the starter is shot, probably is but you'd have to rule out other possibilities first such as hydrolock, defective battery, corroded cables/connector...

in 1993 SLE'* defense, this only works if the starter gets physically stuck and it only works sometimes in my experience.