Thanks Bob and Alex,
Bob, I soaked the boards with several coats of Thompson's Water Seal before final installation on your suggestion, so hopefully that will do the trick. Thanks!
Still blistering hot here, so progress was slow. Add to it the folks who want to come out on the weekends and B.S. for hours and the progress gets even slower...

Got out my engine cover pieces to straighten and weld all the cracks. Was a real battle as they turned out to be very bent. All looked to be in reasonable condition until I tried to test assemble them off the vehicle... Still very glad to have all of them, though!
Installed my data plate and newly-acquired shift pattern plate,(thanks, Dirk!), to see if the holes all lined up and noticed another pair of holes below the shift plate. Does anyone know what was held by these holes?
Also had a question about the access hole on the left engine cover. What was this supposed to access?
Dug around and came up with all the hardware to complete the vaccuum wipers for the C8 courtesy of a cab 13 windshield assembly that came with the truck. Don't really care if the wiper motors work or not as they sucked when brand new, plus it will give me something to do later on after the C8 is on the road and finished.
Thanks, David