Ok fellas, so we finally got some nice weather here in wpa, and I found a little time yesterday to pull the car out and see what I could find out. I attached a wire to the stud on the back of the alternator and ran it over to the positive on the solenoid, with the car running, I'm still getting a reading of 12.14 at the battery. I thought I would try checking the alternator, I'm getting 12.07 again car running, checking the stud and grounding to the alternator case. Thoughts? many thanks in advance!