[40cpe]

I'm glad you found the culprit. There is probably no harm to feed off the battery as you propose. I personally would feel better about the safety of the car in storage/garage knowing all electrical connections were as safe as possible and dead with the switch cut off. There is still a problem somewhere that can be corrected to work as original and it shouldn't be hard or expensive to repair. All that is left is the ignition switch and the wire to the relay. At a minimum, I'd consider a relay in the feed wire from the battery that is triggered by the switch.