Fresh carnage!

what we did - close - so far so good knock on wood - oiler dribbles instead of drooling

I do not like the tube, looks like another disaster waiting to happen. I do like the safety wire. I like having 4 bolts to secure the thrust plate, especially without gallery plugs since that plate also seals the oil galleries at 65 psi. Just use the bolt with the hole. I checked chain stretch on one of my 340's with 100,000 miles. Using just the factory top passenger bolt with the hole in it, the slop was still within tolerance.

One .040 hole in the thrust plate also sounds like it would work.