Valve Stem Seals 5.0

[crunchie_frog]

I have a 5.0 with 187,000 miles and it burned 1.5 qts of oil in about a month of mostly several short drives daily. It burns blue smoke on start up for a few minutes and then it clears up. I did a compression test and get 165-180 psi with similar, quick, even build up (3 strokes) to full pressure on all cylinders. I am thinking of just replacing the valve stem seals and see what happens. I am thinking though I may should just go ahead and do a valve job and head clean up while I am in there, but I really have no indication something is wrong with the valves/valve seats.

Anyone just replaced the valve stem seals for similar symptoms and had any long term success with reducing oil consumption?

Anyone think I should just go ahead and do the valve and head work while I am in there instead of just doing the valve stem seals?

Any concerns with using high mileage oil after replacing the valve stem seals? They have additives that swell/soften the seals and I did not know if this could harm the new seals.

Also, I looked for a write up on this in this forum and could not find one. Anyone interested in a write up when I do this, or maybe you know where there is a write up on this?

 

[Flash]

I did an on vehicle valve stem seal replacement on my Charger engine and it worked well.
There's a tool you can get to collapse the valve spring with the head still on the car, you just have to stop the valve from falling into the bore.

Some people modify a spark plug to hold an air fitting and inflate the cylinder to hold the valves shut, I just put the piston at top dead center, that was enough.

I changed my seals because the teflon ones fitted leaked. I fitting rubber ones and it was fine.
It was a little tricky because I had Iskenderian triple springs. Standard springs should be no trouble.

 

[SoHK_alumni]

Did this to a '67 Caprice 283 years ago. Worked like a champ.

There are tools availabe to compress and remove the valve springs insitu. Just be VERY careful with the valve retainers. Using grease on them to stick them into place on assembly helps as does aa magnetic probe to remove them.

shoving a foot or so of 1/4" poly rope into the cylinder then compressing the rope against the valves.makes a sure fire way to keep the valves in place

 

[JethroBodine]

Mine was doing this along with fouling spark plugs about once per week. Thought it must be valve stem seals. Called dealer service guy. He said it would cost $1100, but that he'd never seen it done in all his time there. He said check PCV. I said what the hey, and I got a new PCV and when I went to replace it, the old PCV was not even connected to valve cover...hose and pcv was just hanging loose/ Don't know if when I had it worked on, they didn't put it back together correctly, or it just came loose, but when I put new one in, it never smoked again, and I quit losing oil, and quit fouling plugs. Cost me about $13.

 

[rb142]

Classic symptoms of valve stem seals. Change out the seals in place ... pretty easy job. There's no reason (mentioned here) to pull the heads or mess with the valves. Don't make a fairly easy job hard.

 

[crunchie_frog]

Classic symptoms of valve stem seals. Change out the seals in place ... pretty easy job. There's no reason (mentioned here) to pull the heads or mess with the valves. Don't make a fairly easy job hard.

Finally found some time to do this job this past weekend. Not too bad though it did consume my weekend. The ac hose from the compressor to the drier got in the way of number 5 but I was able to get it without disconnecting the hose. Also numbers 3 and 4 were hard to get to because the evaporator housing was in the way and I had to remove the bolts holding it so I could wiggle it out of the way. Several of the seals were visibly worn and leaking. Used air to hold the valves in place and I didn't lose any keepers though I fumbled one that ended up on the garage floor.

Any opinion on staying with high mileage oil?