Thank you all for your advice! I'll have to locate a shop to replace that seal...one of my buddies wants to do it for me, as he's currently in mechanic school at the local community college, and he's a big 4WD offroad nut, but that still worries me. On the other hand, I could get hands on with my girl and help him fix her. Not sure what I'll do at this point.

I'll have to look into that royal purple fluid. I've been meaning to use royal purple oil in my girl too, it's just so freaking expensive! ...and I don't work at that silly auto shop like I used to, so I don't get discounts anymore

I'll keep stuff posted on the progress of the repair; I'm thinking the VX will be hanging out in the driveway for a few days. I'll steal my mother's Enclave if I need to go anywhere, lol.

...and next up, I suppose I ought to figure out that new reverberation noise I gained with my lift.