Sheetmetal to aluminum shifter swap.. now a leak

[bimmer630]

Ive been messing with an 86 325 for a few months now, the Guy first asked me to swap in an aluminum shifter assy. that he pulled from a JY car. His car HAD the sheetmetal setup for the shift brace, but the back of the trans has both mounting options.

We swapped it all in with new bushings, etc.. and even replaced the output shaft and selector shaft seals and guibo. The car keeps coming back with oil on the exhaust, leaking from somewhere. first I thought it was a bad selector seal, I put another one in, made sure it was straight, etc..
Now hes back a 3rd time with oil leaking again. This time it looks like the seals are all dry, but there is oil under the old sheetmetal brace mounting points. I thought they were blind holes. If I put a pick tool in the threaded hole it bottoms out.

Is it still possible that there is oil coming through these threaded holes? I thought I read on the forum here that someone had this issue, although searching came up with nothing.
I found two short 10mm bolts and put RTV on them and put them in the holes, cleaned it all off and gonna drive it and re-check.. but im just wondering if this is a feasable idea or if im crazy

[jlevie]

The mounting holes for the sheet metal shifter aren't blind. Now that you've put bolts in those holes the leak should be gone.