The clips on the underside of the shifter plate are almost always broken. They were spot welded to the underside of the shifter plate from the factory. The first time the dealer (or a shop) needed to remove the console, or get at the shifter, or even replace a shifter indicator light, they pulled and pried on that plate, and the clips broke.
It became such a problem that Pontiac issued a tech bulletin in 1969. The official fix : drill two holes in the shifter plate and screw it down.
NOS shifter plates, without the holes, are very rare.
