HELP electrical nightmare? Options

[GriffGirl]

2 weeks ago I replaced my alternator; the car died outside Autozone, and it tested w/a bad diode. So I replaced it and I'm going along fine, but then last week the car starts acting up like the battery is bad. I had to jump it a few times. Nothing weird otherwise though.

I arrange to get a new battery, because the car is still funky. The battery light flashes at me if I rev the car up over 3k RPMs. Last night I pull into Safeway, and think Oh crap, I should back in in case I need a jump, but too late. Dead. Only this time, I CAN'T jump start it. Nothing will work. There's no click, no nothing whatsoever. Even leaving it hooked up to charge it a while doesn't work. When the car died, the check engine light and the oil light stayed on. No other indication of power but that. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN!?

Tonight I show up with a new battery, get it all hooked up, but still nothing. I have an alarm light that blinks, and it blinked normally until I did anything to the car. I could step on the brake pedal, or press in the clutch to start it, and the car goes back to dead again, w/the exception of the CEL and Oil lights being on. Oh, and I left the negative disconnected overnight because it just seemed like a good idea.

So the car still sits. When I reconnect the negative terminal to the new battery, I can hear something clicking under the hood that comes from the relay boxes, both by the alternator and the one on the driver's side. Every time I reconnect the neg it makes that sound, and then the alarm light resumes blinking. But doing anything else, even trying to turn on the dome light, will make it go dead again. I've checked the fuses and they all look fine. Do I have a bad ground somewhere? HELP!

[GriffGirl]

Bad ground wire from block - see pix below:


jerry-rigged together to get out of the Safeway parking lot and also to work today - see ugly wire right by the dipstick



WTF is this?! This atrocity connected the lead off the block to the lead connected by the strut. Is this thing an integral part of the workings/ground of my block? Can I skip this thing and just replace the entire wire w/a not-corroded wire? Should I buy a heavier gauge wire while I'm at it?