MG Car Repair: 1979 mg midget 1500, solenoid coil, starter solenoid

Question
Hello Howard, I recently purchased a 76 mg midget in Florida and had it shipped to my home state of Illinois. It had been in storage and needed a lot of little things. I had been looking for a parts car and found one near my home town at a good price. The car had been driven in a barn and parked five years ago. I've decided it's to solid to part out and have been trying to get it to run. I dropped the fuel tank, cleaned the fuel pump, ran new fuel lines, fuel filter, and put a carb kit in the ZS carb. Plugs, wires, dist. cap, and rotor. My problem is that the key is stuck in the ignition and when I try to start it begins to fire but the starter stays engaged unless you shut the key off killing the motor. I actually did have it running for a short time before I realized this. I've traced the wires and found a pink and white stripe wire along with a white and green stripe wire running to the front of the car with the pink being melted and shorted out. Repaired that and now have a dome light and door buzzer but starter still stays engaged. If I remove the white with green stripe wire off the starter solenoid I have no spark. Remove the white with red stripe and it doesn't turn over. Grey wire from dist. had been cut at some point and wires soldered back together. I think I have everything wired correctly or am I missing some thing or might I have a problem with the ignition switch, distributor, solenoid, coil, or resistor? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank You, Greg

Answer
Hi Greg,
You definitely need a wiring diagram to unscramble all of that. I have put a diagram up on my web site for you to copy. Pick only one circuit to trace out that is wrong and you may find that one will correct the others. If not only work on one circuit at a time with a test light and the diagram. The diagram is at http://mg-tri-jag.net/78onMidget11x1.jpg and the index to the diagram is at http://mg-tri-jag.net/78onMidget21x1.jpg
Howard