valve stem seals!

[EccentricBro]

so i'm gonna replace my valve seals on my redtop SR. it smokes ONLY at idle after its been driven a little. so couple questions. head is staying on the car. cams HAVE to come out correct? no way around that? just trying to avoid re timing the motor if i can. taking off the timing chain scares me a bit lol. i haven't pulled off the valve cover yet and looked at it, but where are the seals exactly? i know the keepers and retainer is up top with the spring below, but where are the seals? do i need a special tool to get them out? i've got the spring retainer tool and the tool to pressurize the cylinder. other than like, a magnetic wand or something, anything else i need? do i have to take anything else off to get to these other than valve cover and cams? seems like a pretty simple/straight forward job. thanks in advance.

[nissandrift!]

Yeah just make sure you're on top dead center of compression stroke on cylinder 1 before you take it apart. The seals are on the valves. Just use a pick or pliers to get them off.

[JBB]

There are valve stem pliers but they aren't necessary, you can use normal pliers or like mentioned above a pick to pull them off.

The SR is an interference motor, so as long as the cylinder that you are working on is at TDC, the valves can't "drop" (they will lower very slightly) -- so an air compressor is not needed.

I hope that you have the valve spring compression tool that bolts into where the cam caps bolt and uses a lever to compress the springs. If you have the one that you hit with a hammer or use body weight to push down, good luck :p

[EccentricBro]

Yeah just make sure you're on top dead center of compression stroke on cylinder 1 before you take it apart. The seals are on the valves. Just use a pick or pliers to get them off.

should i be TDC on compression stroke when doing each cylinder? or just leave #1 on tdc compression and do the rest?

*nvm JBB answered.