After replacing old wires in the harness.... which changed nothing spark wise, I took the gear off the distributor to verify it is the dist gear touching the crank drive gear that kills the spark. It is, when the gear is removed I get spark even when the distributor is fully pushed home in the crankcase.

well, desperate measures .... the body of the distr is certainly grounded to the block and if you ground tested rotor shaft to block etc can't see you finding anything. Are you sure you are not a Honda dude playing with us ?

Can we see pics of engine bay and whole body as a captcha thing

at this stage, I would be measuring the deck height of the top side of the rotor button above a marked point of the dist body while you have drive cog off, refit drive cog, fully engage, bolt down braket snicked up again and measure deck height again. Any difference ? Looking for changes that might affect the magnet and module ring alignment

Well not exactly sure what I did... could be replacing what seemed to be stainless screws on the stator magnet with new stainless that were less magnetic or reshimming the drive gear... whatever it is I don't care bc I finally have spark with the distributor properly installed!!! Now onto fuel, but first checking oil pressure and flow.

great stuff . don't you hate being too impatient to try one remedy at a time to know what really fixed it? My guess the stainless screws would not have made a difference on position of distributor changes. I reckon it was the shim trick. don't be a stranger, i am sure we all want to see non distorted pics of your steed

the crank's drive cog for the distributor is an aluminum alloy of some description