Ballast resistor can be mounted elsewhere. Just see if there are two wires to coil positive. See if you have side terminal starter button. That should take about 30 seconds.

Glad you may have found the drain. A power drain has to find ground so it's traveling thru the VR in a bad way and finding ground in a bad way. Voltage must have been getting "consumed" in the form of heat and not melting wires or blowing a fuse. Not sure. You would think the VR would be very hot. The 12V is turning the coils in the VR and the fields in the gen into heaters maybe. You are making me talk about VR's and Gens. I'm not your man for that. There is about .26¢ of scrap metal there.

Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it. - William Penn