Lord the following user was right takes the power of all gods known to man! To remove this seal, I gave up the flathead screwdriver method. Instead, I used a slide hammer. I screwed in the threaded connection between the lip seal and the gasket and attached a hammer then it went to town, it took more force than I thought it would, so I can imagine a way of removing the paint with a screwdriver or chisel. In addition, the installation was also a bit tedious, the thing just wanted to go in wrong.