HELP!!! In a "Starter" pinch

[Starter986]

I'll try to make this an exercise in brevity.

I'm no electrical whiz. Once before I removed the starter... reinstalled it... all good. At that time I was going to correct the Bendix gear screech. Gear popped in and out nicely, reinstalled.

This time... yeah... not so much.

Removed my starter. Cleaned it up... cleaned some gears... got it all back together. So far so good.

Went to reinstall it. Here's the step by step...

Got the starter positioned... top bolt in.

Got the bottom bolt (went in through the front engine cover).

There are two wire posts. One is a smaller diamter post, and to that I atached the funky looking connecter. All good.

For the other post, the larger one... I had two wires to connect. Both fairly heavy duty (think battery cable). One of the wires slipped right on. The other wire took a bit of tugging, twisting, and pulling. Finally got it on... tightened down the bolt.

Reinstalled the throttle body... tightened everything up. All would seem well.

Went to the frunk. Positioned the positive cable to the positive post. When I put the negative cable on the negative post... a nice big spark. Left it on for the 10 seconds it took me to turn on the ignition... no dash lights at all... then disconnected both battery cables.

Immediately came into the house to appeal to the forum for guidance.

I'm not touching the car until I get this figured out. Car is in the carport... in the service mode. Windows halfway down. If I don't get this figured out today I'll throw on the cover... and attend to it in the morning. With your help I'd like to get it back to normal today.

Thank you!!!