Epson 9600 Ink smears in border

I occasionally get ink smears in the border area only on my Epson 9600 (right border when facing printer). Note; these ink smears are only in the border and come and go. The printer is 3 years old, light-medium use and the lcd had been displaying "maintenance req 0040" for the past few months.

I called for epson service and the cost is so high ($200 to come out plus $175/hour, plus parts-Epson estimate= $1000), I thought I would do the service myself - I'm pretty handy and the service tech told me "it's not rocket science". To take care of the maint req 0040, I will replace the pump & cap assy Epson p/n 1245149 ($79.64), the flushing box P/n 1112239 ($103.43), and the wiper p/n 1230744 ($5.14). The printer status printout shows low lifetime left (one asterisk) on the CR Motor, so I plan on replacing that also while I have everything torn apart.

I would like to clean the print head at the same time, but the service manual doesn't address that. Have any of you done this (cleaned the print head)? If so, how and what did you clean it with? Do I need to use the drainning cartridges?

Any advice, thoughts or ?? from your personal experiences would be greatly appreciated...