Thanks for the link Cheese. It makes it much more understandable what and how the plates can be retrofitted to skirt around leaking air beams. In the example, it shows MC-9 but my 8 looks like the same setup so I'm assuming this would retro onto an 8 if needed.
The pictures clearly show how the plate is mounted and would be easily visible on a retro kit. I don't have such plates and the air beams are holding fine. The mechanic asked if it was plated and I did not know so asked here. thanks