would appreciate your input figuring this one out.

symptoms are:

1) first, noticed several dash warning lights flicker at low light levels, i.e. not fully illuminated, but glowing faintly. if remember correctly, these include SRS, brake, parking brake, battery lights.

2) next day, while driving: engine cuts out (tach behaves erratically, falls to 0), no obvious issue with battery, reading 12.25V, can turn lights etc on, but:

3) won't start, with ignition key in position II, all warning lights on as normal, however trying to start the car results in only a relay click and maybe a VERY brief sound from the starter motor before total silence, all warning lights off

steps tried so far:

cleaned battery terminals
cleaned chassis ground point closest to battery
cleaned ground points on strap connecting valve cover to bulkhead
tested voltage from battery + to alternator body: 12V (so, grounded)

Unsure what to try next other than randomly replacing parts (battery, alternator)!

Thank you for the spot on replies -- solved!

Glowing warning lights were likely caused by worn alternator brushes; a new brush pack seems to have remedied this. (Two things confused me about this initially: first, that the battery charge light didn't come on. Second, that the issue was intermittent, such that when I checked the voltage at the battery with the engine running, I would find 14.5V and think all was well..)

Non-starting was caused by a bad battery (or a bad battery charger..) just ended up replacing the old battery anyway as a precaution. Somehow these two things occurred together

"Somehow these two things occurred together"

More likely one contributed to the other. If the battery was not getting a sufficient supply of electrons from the alternator and was already marginal due to age, the alternator brush issue likely dealt it the final blow.

Just make sure that you alternator ground wire is also in good shape or you could be fighting an intermittent issue down the road.

Definitely get the battery load tested at a parts store. With a good battery, run the car and measure the voltage across the battery terminals-- you should see 13.7-14.2 VDC. If you don't, your alternator is not producing sufficient voltage. Replacing the voltage regulator/brush assembly is straightforward, and can be done with the alternator on the car (be careful not to strip the screws).

you should pull the Regulator/Brushes out of the rear of the Alt. You will probably find that the brushes are short to the extreme...AKA Shot.

You can get new brushes and solder them into or just buy a new Reg/Brush Unit

Your battery is discharged or dead, you need to fully charge the battery and see if the alternator is charging the battery with the engine running.
Dan

I pulled the battery and hooked it up to the charger -- says it's 85% charged, took 10 minutes for full charge to complete, didn't make a difference.

As before, headlights, blower motor, windows all work fine...

Your battery is dead, charge it overnight and take it somewhere and have it load tested.

Batteries do not charge in 10 minutes, likely you have a dead cell. How old is it?

Dan

You also need to check your voltage when cranking. My guess is below 9volts. So either your battery is toast or alternator not charging.
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Post Back. That's whats makes this forum work.

my old digital voltmeter doesn't have a "minimum" mode, so I can't be sure there isn't a big voltage drop happening for a very brief moment.. but when attempting to crank, I can't detect a change in voltage across the battery terminals. (as I mentioned, the starter motor barely turns, if at all; a few milliseconds after the relay click when turning the key, everything just shuts off. the MM briefly flashes its indicator to say something is changing, but then reverts back to 12.25V)

the battery is ~6 years old, so I don't mind replacing it as a matter of routine service. I'll try that tomorrow.