A: Redoing the head on a high mileage engine isn't the best thing to do. I agree on doing seals w/o taking the head off tho. Air pressure or soft rope down the plug hole. From: farna@xxxxxxx To: mail@xxxxxxxxxxxx (AMC-List) Subject: 199 Sucking Oil Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2005 01:55:04 +0000 Message-Id: <072820050155.6398.42E83AF7000EE74D000018FE21587667550E029D0E00@xxxxxxx> What's left of the valve stem seals is likely in the oil pan, and been there a while. Nothing to worry about, but it's going to pull some oil around the valve guides with the seals gone, no way around it. So you can have the seals replaced without removing the head, or pull the head and have thw whole ting rebuilt. If time without the car isn't a big issue and you can remove and reinstall the head yourself (not a big deal, except it's heavy, and you need access to a torque wrench to put the head back on), I'd go ahead and get it rebuilt. The engine will last longer that way, and if you decide to rebuild the rest of the engine in a year or two (or need to) you can skip the head. -- Frank Swygert Publisher, "American Independent