Oil leak - Replace Seals - Help?

To the Maro-Engine-Gods that be:

Among other things, my 70's 454 has oil leaks (valve seals?) that I know is going to have to be corrected soon. The engine compartment is pretty wide open. Does the engine have to be puuled to do this? If not, is it something that's difficult to do, never having done it before? Or is it a matter of being meticulous and taking things off / putting that back on in the right order? I wouldn't need any specialty tools would I? Have a decent set, including some air tools, but no torq wrenches, etc.

Any feedback is much appreciated.

Your lowly humble neophite.

(PS: I've got a buddy with an 04' Cobra modded to "540" hp. Once I get this bitch in order ....)

if your talking about the valve cover pan gaskets, no you wont need to pull the engine. its easy all you do is remove the valve pan cover bolts and remove the covers. then slap in the new gaskets and bolt the pans back on.

well he said valve seals, so does that mean that its leaking oil on the outside of the engine meaning valve covers, or is it burning oil and blowing smoke, meaning valve guide seals? either one can be done with the engine still in the car, but to do valve guide seals, you will also have to do the valve covers.

A little of both I'm afraid (Leaking out and burning). I don't want to get in the middle of this and then have to tow the damn thing to a mechanic to have it finished, because I was too f'ing stupid to do it in the first place.

Am I going to have to rebuild the engine, or is this relatively easy to do? I'm not going to have to take an auto-shop class and buy $10,000 worth of tools to do this am I? I see where Jeg's has kits that include all the engine seals, or is that too much?

just do both at the same time. youll come out better and will save you time and agrivation

Alright, but my question still stands. Is this brain surgery, or can someone with my level of experience do this? Experience which is limited to basic stuff: oil, spark plugs, fuel line, some electric stuff, little body work. No REAL engine work though.

Do I need torque wrench (or other special tools) to do engine work?

its actually quite simple. the only tricky part is that youll have to get the valve springs off, and get the seals off from the valve guides, without dropping the valves into the engine. there are a few ways to do it, such as pumping air into the cylender with a fitting, to keep enough pressure in to keep the valves in, or feeding rope in through the sparkplug hole and then rotating the piston up to push the rope up against the valves, then rotating the piston down, and then pulling it out afterwords. its very doable, just go slow, and take your time.

The pumping air into the cylinder with a "fitting"... What is that? / How do you do it?Have compressor think I might be able to handle this one.

buy a compression tester, that is the fitting that screws into the spark plug hole, there should be a air hose fitting on the other end of the hose to connect to the compressor.

Iroc,

Make sure I've got this right: Remove one spark plug before doing anything else. Screw compression tester into hole, and hook up air compressor hose. Put air into spark plug hole (cylinder ?) and then start taking the parts off to get to the seals I need to replace? (Probably should just replace all plugs when done the job anyway, right?)

One question: How much air do I put in the hole. Should it hold, or will it keep leaking out? Any certain PSI to acheive / stay away from? It'd be my luck that I'd start putting air into the hole and all these parts would come flying off the engine and shit.

THANKS!

lol, ok sorry, guess i left ya kinda hangin.

what youll want to do, is disconnect the battery, clear all the brakets and hoses and such that are in the way of working on the valve covers. disconnect all the plug wires, and pull all your spark plugs. now unbolt and disconnect the valve covers. now undo the nuts holding the rocker arms on, and pull the rocker arms off.

NOTE - keep the nuts and rocker arms paired, and keep them in the order you took them off, so they go back in the same place. always a good rule of thumb with the whole teardown, but especially important in valvetrain goodies.

with that done. put the air hose in the spark plug hole, and open the valve to pressurize the cylender. im thinkin 100psi - 200psi should do it. but ive never done it this way, so if any other guys have better advice on this front please correct me. with that done, use the valve spring compressor to take the pressure off the retainer, and pull off the retainer locks from the valve stem. then release the pressure from the spring, and take the spring, retainer, and locks off the valve. use a small prybar or screwdriver to pry up the umbrella seal on the valve stems, and pull them up and over, then install the new ones by sliding them on and down into place. then put everything together the opposite way you took it off.

also, do you know how to set valve lash? youll need to do this durring reassembly.