After a morning and partial afternoons work, I can assuredly say that the draft tube setup isn't even partially responsible for the oil leak and neither were the two stripped bolts at the bottom of the timing cover........
After reassembling all the parts that I had to take off the truck in order to get to the timing cover, I started the truck up and a constant drip was coming under the front engine mount. I'm not sure how the stock engine was mounted, but this engine is mounted to the front cross member under the front center of the engine. The front of the oil pan just clears this mounting point by about 1/2 inch. I can see that no oil is coming from the oil pan edges (front or sides) but the drip starts at the back edge of this front motor mounting point.
Given that the radiator and crank pulley are reinstalled, its hard to completely see the timing cover, but the source of the oil doesn't appear to be from the front of the engine, although until I find the source, anything is possible.
The photo below shows the drip. If I run the engine enough and there is enough dripping oil, it will also seep through the motor mount bolts that are illustrated too.
