Prolly all corroded inside and bridging the circuit....in an emergency just reach down and yank the spark plug cap off...if THAT doesn't kill the engine - yer bike's possessed !
Kill switch is easy enough to fix, and all else fails, getting or making a new one ain't too hard neither.
I figure, with all the time and effort into this, and the pride of a hand-rebuild, do you really wanna sell it ?...once you get this runnin, you KNOW it's runnin right, and with a new ped, even right outta the box, you gotta do this shakedown mess all over again.
Trust me, once you got it solid - keep the damn thing, you'll be much happier.
-Ree