Well, after a couple frustrating hours tonight, I got the old jeep running again. Derf96963's resistor method worked great to get the proper voltage drop across my new coil. My new starter solenoid seems to be defective though, which caused me problems. The dang thing works sometimes and sometimes not for no apparent rhyme or reason. I hear it click, so I know it is engaged, but the starter doesn't turn. Then I can take a jumper and go across the two solenoid terminals and the starter goes. Then all of the sudden it started responding to the key again later in the night. I am clueless as to why it is inconsistent. I guess after replacing my new coil now I can replace my new solenoid. And at Odjeep's advice, I will make sure I don't have the key in the run position anymore to listen to the radio.
Now I can brag about what I fixed... The transmission to
transfer case adapter was broken, so there was NOTHING securing it in place.
On top of that, the rubber transmission mount was rotted away, and the torque arm bushings weren't even there! And I wondered why I got such a loud noise every time I hit a bump!
Funny thing is it really wasn't as bad as I would think it should be. So I removed the
transfer case, both driveshafts, replaced the u joints while I was at it, and put it all back together again. And I replaced the vacuum shifter so I have 4wd again. I was quite stoked when I drove the thing out of the garage and the ride was smooth over bumps and I didn't get the annoying "wheel hopping" when I accelerated from a stop. I love that feeling of fixing something all by yourself. And then the thing wouldn't start... Typical.
Thanks everybody!