Valve Stem Seal Job
 

I was wondering, for everyone who've done a valve seal replacement job, What is the best way to tackle this job for a 305 engine.
Step by step would be great. I'm going to be doing it on Monday and I was wondering if there is something I should make sure to keep an extra eye on while I'm at it. This will be my first time doing a valve stem seal job on my own. (The last time was about 2 years ago on a 6 cylinder Mercedes with my father)

So far I have the valve seals exhaust and intake, the Valve spring compressor, and valve cover gaskets. I know I need the compressor hookup but how much pressure will do? I have a small compressor (2 gal tops) but I'm not sure if that will work. (I'm not too worried about the compressor as my brother in law lives right up the street and has one but would much rather not have to ask him. I've heard of a string idea, but I've never seen pictures of how that works and wouldn't feel good about doing something I'm not too comfortable with.

Re: Valve Stem Seal Job
 

Air pressure is too much like work. Hurts to even think about doing any of that. Don't bother.

Use the rope method instead. For each cyl, turn the crank until you can see the piston through the plug hole as it nears the top, then stuff as much rope into the hole as you can. About 5/16" nylon rope is perfect. Then turn the crank some more in the direction that moves the piston the rest of the way to the top.

Other than that, if you've done it before, you should be largely prepared for anything you'll run into.

Re: Valve Stem Seal Job
 

Some additional information, not sure if it's important to the job I will be doing: When I bought the car it smoked on start-up (Valve stem seals), I drove around like that for a long time. After my wife and I had a baby, we parked the car and let it sit for almost a year and a half. It smokes worse now and is fouling out my spark plugs faster (every 300 miles I need to replace them). I'm assuming that with it sitting, the seals just got worse. I'm hoping that this is the case and not something I have to pull the motor out and rebuild. I'm leaving for the military on 4-22-2013 and am trying to make this car drivable for my wife until we can afford another car and I have the time to work on the car fully.

Re: Valve Stem Seal Job
 

None of that is particularly material to the job at hand.

Only other significant possibility is, intake gaskets bad, along the bottom edge of the ports. Since that's at essentially the same point in terms of a leak (an unintentional passage between crankcase and intake ports) it's pretty tough to say for certain which one is the cause. But NBD, while you're doing the seals, just pop the intake off at the same time and knock it out; at that point you will have already done at least 75% of the work of swapping intake gaskets ANYWAY. No sense in NOT assuring a successful outcome given how little extra effort & money is involved.

Re: Valve Stem Seal Job
 

Ok, so I've finished with the valve stem seal job. New problem, now my car sounds like it wants to stall after I'm driving steady and start to give it gas. I have no idea what it could be but I did notice my oil pressure dropped (according to the gauge) to less than the 30 mark while driving. I'm going to be doing an oil change but I dont know if that will solve the problem. Is it just coincidental? or did something go wrong when I was doing this. For the record I did clean out a lot of dirt under the valve cover area.

Re: Valve Stem Seal Job
 

Make sure you did not damage or unplug any wires when you had the valve covers off.

Check for trouble codes.