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Yikes! Trial by shotgun.
It sounds, unfortunately, like a bad crimp connection at some hidden connector buried somewhere unthinkable in the harness.
If it were my car, I'd launch into a serious diagnostic mode. For this, I'd rig up a 12 volt "tell tale" lamp with long wires. One wire I'd ground, the other I'd connect to an alligator clamp (with an insulating boot).
Then I'd connect the clamp to the push-on connector at the solenoid. The lamp shou, light anytime 12 volts is present -- as when it's cranked. This will indicate whether or not the signal is making it to the solenoid when it fails to crank.
At some point, you'll need to run this test by carefully peeling back a tiny bit of insulation and testing at the conductor. (For example, the crimp at the solenoid push-on connector could be intermittent.)
Using the aligator clamp and very careful testing of wires, you can work your diagnostic testing back up the wiring harness to find the point where the signal fails (or doesn't fail).
I remember chasing intermittent ignition in one of my '82 wagons. After tearing out all my hair, I found that the crimped connector at the coil had crimped on insulation, but not the copper conductor. Sometimes it touched, sometimes it didn't.
For this, you probably could use a good schematic. You may be forced to bypass a suspicious portion of a buried harness and run a parallel wire to the solenoid (or safety switch or ignition switch...).
--
Don Foster (near Cape Cod, MA)
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