Valve stem O rings

[JulioK]

Decided to replace the valve stem seals this weekend (never done it before). I've had the truck about 8 months and don't know much about its repair history. The engine had no valve seals and had crumbling O rings on the valve stems. My question is... Do I need to have the o Rings at all? I cleaned out the crumbling o rings and installed umbrella style seals but did not put in new o rings. I suppose I was not educated on the process thoroughly and thought that because the umbrellas did not come with o rings that they were not needed. Thx

Drove the truck about 30 miles and I'm pleased that it is not smoking when started now.

[hamjet]

The O rings were useless. you'll be fine without them as long as you use the umbrellas...

[jjzepplin]

Do you need to pull the heads to do this?

[hamjet]

Nope, theres different ways to hold the valves up. bring the cylinder you're going to do first to the top of the bore,(TDC of that cylinder). you can either use air pressure through the sparkplug hole,(which is what I did) some people shove cloths line rope through the plug hole to stop the valve from dropping, remove the rocker, compress the spring and remove the keeper, install the umbrella seal drop the spring over the valve, install the two keeper halves, release the spring compressor, take a soft mallet and hit the stem to make sure the keepers seat, install rocker and adjust like you would to adjust them, pull out rope or remove air pressure from cylinder and repeat the steps for the other cylinders. just don't use too much air pressure or it may push the piston down the cylinder.. take your time.