Stihlf150

I have an 04 f150 with 104,000 miles on it. I've replaced all spark plugs with new one piece plugs about 2,000 miles ago and the truck ran awesome. I use it to tow a dump trailer filled with firewood about twice a month and drive to work 20 miles one way about one day a week. recently it started to tick and knock when it idles at operating temp. I read some posts about phasers and timing chain replacements, along with some repair shop "horror stories", but i cant seem to find a certain cure for my problem. I read that motorcraft oil filters are way better than fram filters to run on my truck so changed out my fram filter with a motorcraft filter, hoping to boost Oil pressure. It didn't seem to change anything. So I bumped up my oil viscosity to 10w-30. It seemed to help out a little bit. I took off my driver's side valve cover to check for sludge. I noticed a little bit of varnish on things but not a whole lot of sludge. So I am leaning towards the vct oil solenoid not getting enough pressure to the phaser. Any info on this subject would be greatly appreciated. thanks

Slimgutrich

Sorry I can't help u I'm dealing with a problem also and doing a lot of research mine seems to have a valve ticking thing only when low rpm's like 1100 only have 40000 miles on my 2010 5.4 just started after a long trip and a full tank of gas good luck in your search for answers