Ok, Thanks Everyone.
Turns out the "black thing" is an o-ring that was inproperly installed. Now I'm not sure if I should return it for an exchange or try to disassemble it and fix it myself and risk damaging it to the point where it wouldnt be accepted as an exchange.
This has been a long project already and the last thing I want to do know is wait for another UAT. []
I should have known better than to take a new component out of the package and not check that it appears to be operational.

Thanks,
Cody