battery, starter, wires and stuff

[Ecode70D]

Swank
     Stick with it!!    You will get it running. 

[Swank]

one thing I ran into, just to make sure im looking at this right.
I think the coil might have been wired up incorrectly (which I had left that way on my cranking test run).

I put up a couple photos from after the rodent nests were gone.  it has a red wire from the harness going to the resistor, then a wire from the resistor going to the "dist" terminal on the coil. then a black wire from the harness going to the "batt" terminal of the coil and also a wire going to the distributor from the "batt" term on the coil.

from my understanding, the distributor wire should be going to the "dist" (or negative) terminal on the coil, and the black wire from the relay/harness should be going to the "batt" (positive) terminal along with a wire from one side of the resistor. at least that's what I think the diag says. 

since im replacing all this stuff, rather not hook it up wrong and burn something new out.

[hiball3985]

You are on the right track. The red wire from the harness goes to the ballast resistor, then from the resistor to the + side of the coil. The brown wire from the harness also goes to the + side of the coil, that wire bypasses the resistor to provide a full 12V power to the coil when the ignition switch is in the start position. Your picture shows it connected to the - side which is wrong. There should only be one black wire going from the - coil post to the distributor.

[Swank]

right on right on,  thankyavermuch.
now just the agony of waiting on parts in the mail.