Well, after letting the silicone patches dry, I decided to turn the machine on again now that I had disconnected the suds saver. The machine came on and was a lot quieter with the suds valve no longer buzzing, but it was still a bit loud. I though I'd let in run for a minute or two cuz I had had the machine tipped on it's side for so long, I figured this would give it a chance to move the oil around in the transmission, after a minute or so, the noise suddenly dropped to it's normal Kenmore hum!!!! YAY!!!! I stopped it and started it many many times to make sure that it wasn't just going to be quiet after it had been running for a minute or so, and it stays quiet!!! YAY!!!! Now my only pressing issue is that agitator spline rust. I took a wire brush to it and scrubbed it down a bit then cleaned it off and put some vaseline on and tried to stick an agitator on, got down about 3/4 of the way and stopped... CRAP! so now I've got some water gettin ready to boil on the stove to get it off and back to the wire brush!