[Spridgets] 72 Midget elec woes

[Frank]

I am working on swapping everything from 1 Midget to another, one was 
built 10/71, the other 4/72 so the wire harnesses are identical.
No dash in it yet but I popped the drivetrain in it yesterday and wanted 
to see if it ran. He did drive the rust bucket over here so I knew it 
ran but now the drive train is in the
71 tub with a 71 harness.
I just hooked up the alternator (Lucas) and the plug fit. Hooked the 
tach wires together, hooked up the coil and solenoid and plugged in the 
wires from the key switch to the harness. Nothing else but the oil gauge 
is hooked up, dash board is across the garage.
I turned the key and it fired right up, ignition light went out as it 
should and it shut off with the key as it should.
10 minutes later I hear the fuel pump ticking, the ignition light is on 
and the key is off.
Key out, light still on, light stays on until I start it and it goes out.
So where is my short that showed up after a few minutes?
I unplugged each wire from the key switch, the light stayed on! I had to 
pull the secondary brown wire off the solenoid to kill the ign light.
Even the heavy primary brown wire on the solenoid did not kill the ign 
light.
Now none of this was going on when I was hooking up the few items to get 
it to fire. And did not happen for the 20 minutes I was messing with 
stuff starting it, turning it off, etc.
I am thinking a short in the alternator?
What do you guys think?

-- 
Frank Clarici
Toms River, NJ
My own Fleet of Sprites