Do a search of this site. There was someone that had a nice write up of doing it. I had suggested using compressed air to hold the valves in place while doing the job. But they fashioned a way to insert a rope into the cylinders to prevent the valve from dropping.

I think they also had some good tips on dealing with the valve keepers but I don't recall what that was.

 

thank you for your advice

i finally parked the car in garage, and started taking things apart.
so far i have broken the pcv hose and the other vent hose, either need to duct-tape or find a replacement

rotated the crankshaft pulley and set engine to top dead center,

the serpentine belt tensioner bracket was a b!tch to take out, the bolt is so long that i thought it wasn't going to make it out, luckily i pushed down the aluminum ac line a little, and just barely have enough room to slide it out.

the power steering pump was also a b!tch to loosen. luckily, I recently bought the astro nano sockets, and able to slide it in the power steering pulley and loosen the 14mm bolts, that took extra 5 minutes of struggle, but able to move the steering pump out of the way without removing the other engine mounts.

i was able to easily loosen and removed the timing chain tensioner from bottom, and have clear all the part on timing chain cover.

i saw a youtube video where the chinese did the valve stem on 2az-fe engine with compressed air without removing the timing chain cover, and i didn't see him rotate the crank shaft either.

 

I've never tried to pull the timing cover off while the engine is in the car. A real pain in the azz from what everyone has said.

On those old vacuum lines I've found taking a hair dryer or heat gun and warming those a bit will help soften them. Broken my share over the years before I learned that trick.

 

thanks for the hair dryer tip

today, i proceeded to remove the cams shaft and took out my first exhaust valve stem seal,
no wonder it is puffing blue smoke, the seal hole looks much bigger than the new seals, even with naked eye.
i must have stuffed 10 + ft of rope in the cylinder, i found my spare windshield wiper insert stainless metal strip very usefully again for pushing the rope in.

i thought about using air as well but hate to wake up my family when the compressor runs at night.

 

alright, I've renewed all the intake valve stem seals and exhaust valve stem seals, roughly took about 5 to 8 minutes per seal.

i went to lowes bought 100 ft 1/4" rope and a pack of 20 bungee cord, $20 well spent, i used two bungee cords to hold timing chain while i took out the cam shafts, and i was able to rotate the crankshaft to compress piston on each cylinder, and i didn't remove the timing chain cover either.

i was lucky to get a nice top dead center with 2 yellow color chain on each cam sprockets, so i just re-time the chain the same way i removed it
i heard clicking sound 2 times as i rotate initially on crankshaft, sound like a craftsman ratchet wrench clicking.
after i released the timing chain tensioner, and i rotated the crank shaft 2 times, the each cam sprocket came back to top dead center, but not the yellow color marked chain, spun it a few more 2 time, and the cam sprocket came back exactly to where the arrow is, so is the crankshaft notch at 0, cylinder 1 intake and exhaust valves both closed.

is it normally that i won't see the yellow chain mark on cam sprockets on TDC until i rotate it enough times?

 

after the long weekend vacation at ocean city MD, i finally put everything back together, i also poured 4 floor ounce of seafoam into each spark plug hole, and let it soak for a few days, initially the seafoam stayed on top of the piston for almost a day, and then disappeared, i re-poured more seafoam again before the vacation, when i came back, i poured more seafoam into spark plug hole again, and it disappeared within a few hours. i did manually turn over the engine, and by starter, no fluid, only air coming out of the spark plug hole, started the vehicle, and there were alot of smoke coming out of the tailpipe, ran it for 15 minutes and did another oil change and road tested vehicle, now the vehicle shift to higher gear at 1600 rpm, and feel like the car seat is pushing my spine, very smooth and quiet engine, have to drive it for a few weeks to see if it puffs blue smoke, $50 well spent on the oem valve stem seals, and $12 well spent on the 2 can seafoam from walmart.