95 Lumina van cranks, won't start

morning; battery voltage here shows 14V or so. Drive >15-20mi., stop, and engine cranks over but won't start. Will start with a jump, or over time, as if engine temperature plays more critical role than normal.

brakes applied, power windows operated, side gate operated, headlights turned on. Stalling seems eminent when quick gas given then let off.

of speedometer occurs; gas gauge also displays dips, then rises.

distributor had been replaced in Mov. 2002. I'm convinced it is more basic than that. Any comments?

Yes, I did in fact test the alternator and it checked out ok. I'm not sure of the grounds, however; I believe one or more of them is problematic. When I received this car from my pops, the battery's negative side post consisted of a heavy guage cable going to the starter (-) terminal and a smaller gauge wire going to the wall of the fender. This smaller wire and two other wires coming from the firewall were all attached to the fender by a screw. Another "ground" wire of medium gauge was mounted on the engine block itself and routed to the heavy gauge negative cable previously described; it was just spliced into the cable. I replaced this negative cable some time ago but I'm wasn't sure what to do with the smaller wire; nor was I certain how I should route and secure the two wires from the firewall and the one from the engine block. I surmise that this is when and where the problem started. Can anyone tell me the proper configuration pertaining to this area of the ground connections? Do I need to maintain the original configuration? Thanks for your responses.

By all means change the ground setup. I like to run a Ford starter cable from the engine block to the frame rail. I also recommend running a 10 guage jumper from frame rail to radiator support, and another from frame rail to firewall. Connect the negative battery cable directly to the block. Remove alternator, clean brackets of paint where bracket fastens to block, and where alternator fastens to bracket. Replace bolts with stainless steel ones. My 81 El Camino used to eat alternators, improving the ground stopped the problem.

The click of death is usually the starter DOA or the wiring harness.

Thankfully, fixable.

Thanks for the input. I will get started on the improvements to grounds. Unsure of the reference to "frame rail" and would appreciate more specification. The symptoms now include no cranking, then cranking, then starting with increased frequency; additionally, the last 2 nights I've noticed that starting the car is more difficult when rainy or during especially cold weather (cold for San Diego CA conditions,