John, We can work kinda backwards with your starting problem. Get a pair of jumper cables and a good battery. Hook the ground to the neg. battery terminal and to the S/G bracket. Hook the red lead to the battery pos. terminal. Touch the other end of the red lead to the Armature terminal on the S/G. Don't clamp it on as all you want to do is make sure the s/g works. It will spark and also should turn the engine over. If you want it to run you will need to turn the ignition switch on. If the engine turns over the S/G is good. If it doesn't you either have a bad connection or the s/g is bad. Moving right along. Close the hood on your car as we're working with the battery in the cub now. Get a jumper wire (a small one not the jumper cables)and hook one end to the battery pos terminal. Touch the other end to the ignition switch terminal on the solenoid. The solenoid should at least click. If it doesn't you either have a bad connection with your jumper wire, a bad ground, a dead battery, or a bad solenoid. If the solenoid clicks and the motor turns over. the problem is upstream of the solenoid. In other words, a safety switch, ignition switch, or bad connection. All these things are in series with one another meaning if one is bad the volt stops here.
You might also want to disconnect the neg. battery terminal and check the voltage across the battery for 12 volts. While you have the neg terminal disconnected, hook one lead of a voltmeter to the neg. battery terminal and the other lead to a good ground. Make sure the ignition switch is off. There should be no reading. If there is a reading you have a short somewhere which will drain the battery. Again, make sure the ignition switch is off otherwise you will have a path to ground if the points are closed.
You could go the other way and start at the battery but I like to check the major components first. There are less of them than all the other possibilities. Marshall