Just finished replacing all the valve seals so I will begin putting everything back together tomorrow. During the process I dropped a keeper between the exhaust manifold and exhaust manifold heat shield. I almost soiled myself but removed the heat shield and was able to get it back. After that I covered each side of the engine bay with an old sheet and filled all the holes in the head with cotton balls....I would highly recommend doing this so you don't lose any parts inside the engine. Also, every single one of my valve seals fought me coming out. Removing them was the hardest part of the process. Toward the end I only used a nice pair of needle nose plyers to get the seals out. Even the valve seals I was able to remove in one piece still had a little piece of rubber debris I had to fish out with a Q-tip. The valve stem plyers were a waste of money in my opinion. The 2nd to last seal I went to pull out with the plyers wasn't even seated. I was losing a half quart of oil per 500 miles and smoked pretty bad on start up. I'm pretty sure that's why. Overall I would say the keeper remover/installer is an absolute must. Here is the one I bought and I worked like a charm -Lisle 36050 Valve Keeper Remover and Installer Kit - bought it off amazon. I used exactly 10 ft of rope per cylinder. I put each cylinder at TDC and wound back 45 degrees then stuffed the 10 ft of rope in as best I could then used a skinny screw driver to stuff the rest in. I marked the rope with a sharpie so I used the same length on every cylinder. This was more than enough rope as the cylinder was full before I cranked it back to TDC to tighten it up.
When I go to install the cams should I use my engine assembly lube on each of the lobes of the cams or essentially any part where metal will touch metal during the initial turn over?
Lastly, will I need to purchase a timing light to adjust the timing as mentioned in the TSRM?