Hi "Kittysgreyvolvo".
No need to apologize for a delayed response. Most of my submissions have been late. Too many other things demanding my attention. I'll get to this job one of these days. By way of context, the reason I am planning to replace the seals is that I have a serious leak of oil coming from the under the timing belt cover. The reason I am paying attention to the PCV system is that excess pressure might be the reason that one or more engine seals blew out. In fact, you already sent information on how to check if the PCV system is clogged. With the engine running and the oil cap off, I put my hand over the oil cap hole in the valve cover and felt pulses of pressure. At no time was there any vacuum. I looked at the flame trap and saw that the gizmo with the holes in it did not appear to be clogged. As per your instructions I pinched off the small hose from the flame trap, then disconnected the large hose from where it enters the bellows. With the oil cap ON, I blew into the hose. It was hard to blow into, and when I let go, some of the air came right back out. Next I took the oil cap OFF and blew into the hose. It was just as hard to blow into this time. The only difference was that no air came back out when I stopped blowing. This tells me there is a clog in the PCV system. Would you agree?
I have instructions on how to clean the oil separator (aka oil box, breather box) with solvent and compressed air without removing it from the engine block. At some point I plan to do that in addition to replacing the now oil soaked timing belt and accessory drive belts, the water pump, the tensioner, and maybe the accessory mounting bushings. I just now got around to reading Dave Stevens December 11 response. I plan to respond to that in a day or two. Again, thanks for your interesting comments.