Thanks for the tips and suggestions. Once I got in there it was much easier than I had initially anticipated. The reason for the change was a growing amount of oil seepage from the rear of the head gasket. Here are some pictures of the project:
Ready for dis-assembly:
Marked and numbered:
It's off! Look at the nice carbon build-up:
This could use some cleaning:
Much Better:
The Work Area:
While I had things apart figured it was a good time to upgrade the front sprocket from a 16 to 17:
All back together:
Finished the whole process in about 4 hours. After reassembly I ran the engine to warm it up and then changed the oil and filter to remove any contaminates that may have gotten into the engine while it was open.
After dinner had a chance to go on a shake down ride. Happy to report complete success. Not only did the seepage stop as hoped, I also enjoyed smoother idle and acceleration. I suppose the decarboning of the cylinder head and pistons was the primary reason behind these improvements. Also happy to report RPM's dropped about 400 at highway speeds making the bike much more enjoyable and less buzzy due to the changed front sprocket.
Items replaced:
Head gasket
o-rings on locating dowels
valve cover gasket
Left side cover gasket (PO had used rtv, yuck)
intake o-rings
spark plugs