Hello, new to the forum and glad to see there's a caddy forum out there. I'm a member of several LS1 forums and own an 04 GTO and a 98 formula.

My first post here is going to be asking for help. Sorry. My father passed away last month and while I was down for the funeral I looked over mom's car for her. I saw that her front cover is leaking oil pretty bad. I know dad had a water pump put on last year so I'm assuming that's when it started.
I called a repair shop and the only dealership down there and both told me that it was a waste of time to replace just the seal that it would leak again. They both recommended replacing the front cover. Neither place could find a front cover and I have yet to find one searching on the web. My question is are these guys full of it? I see no reason the OEM cover would need to be replaced for a seal job. I'm guessing they just don't want to mess with it and after looking down the front of that car and the lack of room I know why. Looks like I'll be doing the job myself when I'm home on vacation but I don't want to do this and have it leak again. Do I really need to change the cover and what am I looking at to replace the seal? Just pull the cover and put a new gasket in right? I know this car has a 2 piece water pump but I'm hoping I won't have to do anything to that right? Seems like when I looked in dads Haynes manual I was under the impression I didn't have to pull the pump. Any help would be appreciated