motor wont turn over?

so let me get this straight - when the plugs are in, the starter clicks but won't start the motor? With the plugs out, they shoot spark? Is that right?

There are only three things that you need to start a motor: spark, air, and fuel. Make sure you have all of those. Let's start with fuel:

Do you have a see-through fuel filter? Are your carb jets shooting fuel? If so, don't just bump the motor, hold it down, you could have flooded the cylinders.

What about air? Do you have compression? Do you have the choke open on the carb?

And finally, spark: Take the cap off the distributor and set cyl #1 to TDC. Make sure the rotor is pointing at #1 plug. If that's correct, then double-check the firing order. Are your plug wires on the correct tabs on the cap? Is your coil or ballast resistor bad?

If you have all of that, then there should be no reason that it doesn't fire, unless you have a low battery. The low battery could power the solenoid, but may not fire the spark.