charging problem

I can understand this better if I know what's happening and why.

I'm still fuzzy on reading voltage from one ground (the battery negative post) to another (the mounting flange of the VR) Can you explain where the voltage would come from? I would expect there to be no voltage at all going ground to ground. That's why I thought I'd be reading ohms (resistance) in that path between the battery post and the mounting flange but now rereading your previous posts I see that was wrong. I had only printed out your first post and brought that out to the garage.

If the ground contact between the VR flange and the body or any other contact in that path between the battery post and the VR flange is bad, does a small amount of voltage backfeed from the VR to the battery post through the meter giving you some sort of a voltage reading? Is that what happens with a bad VR ground?

Next question.

"Put one probe on switched 12V ignition, the other probe on battery POSITIVE."

"switched 12V ignition" as in the IGN terminal on the VR, correct?

I hope I don't sound like a total idiot here. Thanks for your patience.