Well now that really muddies the water,
I did more tests.
I found another amp gauge that was a little more accurate and sensitive.
It showed that when putting the plate on the coil, that it did decrease amp draw but was more of a quick fluctuation and barely showed a difference in draw.
So I did a temp check,
after an hour, it got too hot for my dainty hand to touch @ *130 with plate to coil, using just a dial temp gauge I use for ac work not a calibrated one.
What surprised me was with driven plate removed mimicking a large, out of speck air gap, after another hour passed, no magic smoke and the temp at the same *130 as the previous test.
So have I busted another myth, or just created more questions?
Important thing is op has a working pto with no cost.