TH350 Kickdown holddown threads stripped

[trz1000]

I bought my 72 Jimmy in February as a project. It ran ok and went down the road pretty good when I brought it home. A few days after getting it settled in my shop a huge puddle of ATF appeared. I'm talking a couple of quarts. I found it pretty strange since it didn't leak a drop before that time. Very long story short, I found the kickdown cable dislodged with no hold down bolt. Soon after I found that the bolt hole is stripped.

I'm at the point where I'll be firing the motor real soon so the time has come to solve this issue.

I really don't want to pull the tranny and there isn't enough room to drill and tap a new size. I'm considering a self tapping 5/16" bolt but though I'd throw this out there to see if anyone has any better ideas.

I'm a Ford guy so bare with me as I learn all this GM stuff; do I need to run a kickdown? I ran a 64 Galaxie with a C6 without one for probably 6 months until I tore the car down to build a hot rod. Really didn't make much difference to be honest. If I can get away without running it, How would I go about sealing the hole? I'm not a fan of filling a hole with silicone to seal it, plus I don't know how much fluid pressure there would be in that area of the tranny.

Thx,

Tz