Electrical problem toasted ignition coil

[73Manta72gt]

Installed battery cutoff switches on both my GT's and I think it might of paid off today. When I park the cars in the garage I open the hood and disconnect the battery from the car. Today I connected the car battery closed the hood and pushed the car out of the garage without starting it to work on the spare tire shelf. Later in the day I noticed the slight smell of something burning as I worked in the driveway When I tried to start the car to drive it in the garage the battery was almost dead. I opened the hood and found the coil had exploded spraying black goo on the inner fender and engine.

I did a little troubleshooting tonight and found that the + terminal of the coil has 12v on it with the key off. when I flipped the headlights they were powered up along with alternator and oil pressure lights. Ignition off key in my pocket.

Any guess to the problem?

[Gordy]

It would seem the ignition switch is suspect since the coil was getting 12 v and the idiot lights were on while the ignition was in the off position.

[73Manta72gt]

I found the problem. about 6 inches from the starter there is a splice between the main battery cable to the fuse box and smaller gauge fusible link connecting to the battery terminal of the starter. The clear "resistance" wire for the coil runs from the fuse block through the harness to the same area and splices to the ignition bypass wire from the starter. Both splices were frayed and they shorted so power was going direct to the coil and to the first three fuses through the clear wire causing some of the dash light to come on.