I am seeing some oil leakage and suspect it is coming from the front camshaft seals. I did the first timing belt change at 70K per manual and didn't notice any problems at the time. The car has 125K now and since I am noticing this leak, I figure I should just go ahead and change everything. My question is do I actually have to remove the top half of the cylinder head and remove the camshafts in order to replace the front seals. Can I just remove the camshaft pulleys and remove the seals after doing that? Also the manual I have references a pulley holding tool which I think is only needed to prevent the pulleys from turning once the timing belt is removed -- I'm thinking if I just loosened the camshaft pulley retaining bolts before removing the timing belt, I don't really need this tool or its equivalent -- any opinions ? Really appreciate all the advice and expertise that this forum has to offer -- it has helped save me a bundle.

 

Mark the pulleys to the cam cover before removing the belt. Then remove the belt and mark the pulleys to the cams in the center. Then mark around the screws with a marker.
Then if you can use an impact to remove the screws(less chance to spin the cam)
Then change out seal and put back together.

 

Thank you - this is very helpful. Thought I might have to remove the top half of the cylinder head -- this is a lot easier.

 

Its not to bad.