utility jars and seam component overrides

[rshan.bob.shanahan.alascorp.com]

Environment:
JDK 1.6,
JBoss 5.1.0,
Seam 2.2.0

I have an ear project, currently with a single war. I have a utility module/jar with a class that overrides the Spring context loader as follows:

@Scope(ScopeType.APPLICATION)
@BypassInterceptors
@Startup(depends="org.jboss.seam.ioc.spring.springELResolver")
@Name("org.jboss.seam.ioc.spring.contextLoader")
@Install(precedence = Install.APPLICATION)
public class SeamContextLoader
{
...
}

I have the following in my components.xml:

<spring:context-loader>
   <spring:config-locations>
      <value>locatorFactorySelector=classpath:com/xyz/services/beanRefFactory.xml</value>
      <value>parentContextKey=xyz.services</value>
      <value>/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml</value>
   </spring:config-locations>
</spring:context-loader>

If the custom context loader is deployed within my utility jar it never supersedes the built in, regardless of whether the utility jar is deployed to EAR/lib or WAR/WEB-INF/lib. The only way it works is if I move the custom context loader class to the WAR project and hence deploy it to WAR/WEB-INF/classes. Furthermore, adding class specification to spring:context-loader has the effect of skipping Spring context loading.

<spring:context-loader class='com.xyz.web.util.SeamContextLoader">
...
</spring:context-loader>

Obviously I'd prefer not to replicate my custom context loader for every webapp. Does this require special classloader config? Would appreciate some insight on how best to manage overriding components.