New Member - Questions about Valve Stem Seal replacement

[pdxexpedition]

Hi there,

I had bought an 05 not too long ago and the vehicle ran well and passed smog (suprisingly).

I am doing the deep dive maintenance like replacing the seals, plugs etc, and noticed that definitely it appears that the valve stem seals need replacing.

The vehicle ran pretty smooth and from the looks of it had the cam phaser and chain replaced.
However I need a strategy for replacing the seals. I dont want to remove the head, and bought the OTC valve stem seal tool.

However, when you guys are doing this, is it better to pull off the cam and do the job? How exactly are y'all tackling it? (pics below)


I have some pictures below, and the water in the valley did bug me with a little oil, but i predict that being bad seals. Your thoughts are welcome. The vehicle has 200K exactly on the dot.

 

[Hamfisted]

Are you seeing blue smoke in your exhaust on startup ? That's a good sign of bad valve seals. The water in the valley can come from the cylinder head temp sensor (very typical at 200k) or the intake coolant crossover gasket failure (sometimes accompanied by bad intake manifold contact point i.e. crack). Or the O-ring seals on the heater pipe there under the intake manifold that comes off the back of the waterpump. Hopefully it's had it's sparkplugs changed a few times already and they used the newer one piece sparkplug and not the POS 2 piece plugs that thing came with. That will make your sparkplug change a lot easier.
But I wouldn't rip into changing the valve stem seals unless you're seeing blue smoke on start up. It's a huge PITA. I had to pull the heads off my '03 this weekend to replace a bad head gasket ( 220k miles...) and have the heads rebuilt while they're off. Honestly it took me two days just to pull the heads 'cause I just got tire of being under the hood, and when it got dark I quit for the day. Everything else looks great. But I do have a slight leak from the original cylinder head temp sensor, so it's getting replaced. Weird thing is, I stopped by the dealership to pick up a new Ford part, and it was made in China. Looked cheap too. So I went over to Autozone and got a Duralast, made in Mexico like the original one was, and looks identical.
I have a few other cars to drive, so I'm not in any hurry with this job. I'm gonna replace the rocker arms, valve springs, seals, while the heads are off. Taking 'em to the shop tomorrow.