Ok so I'm a dork and I ruined the rubber on one of the stem seals when I was putting grease on it a tiny cresent moon shaped sliver of rubber came off from around the inside of the top. NOBODY has one, went to Cost Less, O'Reillys, AutoZone, nobody has one in stock. Fastest is tomorrow. Ok fine. So I'm not finishing up the seals tonight. Disappointed but don't want to put a may-be-bad one on, and sure don't want to leave 1 old one on there, so will have to finish up tomorrow. Thinking there must be a reason ... maybe I'm supposed to replace that crankshaft end seal, too. *sighs* Might as well I guess, it's already right there. How hard can it be?

OH and I've seen the videos about doing the valve stem seals with the engine in the car... INSANITY omg, okay that's absolutely crazy to me. Because those little keepers are simply too unpredictable!!! I've had pretty good luck with them with the head off, but I just know I'd lose one in the great black hole of the engine block if I tried to do this with the head installed.

Oh yeah, and about that rope trick, stuffing rope into the engine for those who don't have air: I just want to put out the idea to use cotton rope, like clothesline rope, NOT that poly plastic rope!!! If the rope strands happen to get cut even a little in the process of ensuring TDC & valves don't drop, if it's plastic rope, it'll melt into globs and probably get stuck in there for good. Cotton burns & tears to fall apart, plastic does weird things.