I've either misread your post, or somethings not making sense. Even if the battery is discharged enough to not turn over the engine, and, the cells are all ok. You should still get a 12 volt reading, if it's sealed battery your pretty well done. If it has caps, you can check from cell to cell and find the bad one, just to satisfy yourself and know it's the battery or not. The alt, is it a GM? If so, take a look at the rear case and look for a 'D' shaped hole. It will be about 5/16th to 3/8th across at the flat side of the 'D'. If you can look in the D hole, you should be able to see the backside of the voltage regulator. With a battery hooked up and everything ready to go, have the engine running at an idle. Using a small screwdriver or metal probe, ground the case at the 'D' hole and the back of the regulator. If the alt is working, you will get 16 to 16.6 volts on the gauge or meter. You will only need to do this for 2 or 3 seconds to make the test. What you are doing is, bypassing the regulator, and causing the alt to put out full voltage. If the test shows the 16 volts or so when the probe is applied, and then returns to the 13.6 to 14.4 volt range, you know then, that the alt is working, and the regulator is working. This leaves the battery as the faulty part. The part that makes me wonder is, you would get the solenode to click at first, but tested out of the car it was dead. An open circuit in the battery? Sniper