Had a starting issue with a work pick-up truck on Saturday. In the parking lot of a nursery, bed loaded to the top with bags of fertilizer, etc. Thankfully the parking lot had a decent slope, and the truck fired up with a push start. Once I got it to my house, it would not start again. When I looked at the battery, it appeared the negative terminal had been encased in blue styrofoam. It turned out to be a massive built-up of corrosion. When I started to loosen the terminal clamp in order to clean everything up, the clamp cracked through and fell apart. Turns out the battery connection was intermittent due to the clamp failing, and it caused starting problems every now and then. Now this was an extreme case, but it shows a small electrical contact issue can cause unpredictable results, until it gets bad enough to happen all of the time.

(edit) I repaired a tiller and a pick-up truck over the last 2 weekends. That is more work then I have done to my car so far this year. I'm afraid I might be turning into a redneck :(

Ok cool....that covers those areas.
How do the distributor cap and rotor look? How about the CDI box?

I hooked up the load tester and it read 'CH'. In snap-on speak it sounds like I have a date with the battery charger. Of course, the car has run fine since the initial problem.

Thanks for help