tbmguy

I hope somebody can help me out with this. I have a 05 F150 4x4 STX, about a month ago it started making a ticking noise from the rightside valve cover. After reading forums and TSB's I used seafoam, changed the oil (5w20) new filter 820s, and replaced the lifters on that side. It was great no noise when I started it and it ran for a while. after reassembling everything it started ticking again. went up got more lifters and did it again. Now I did notice that there was not a lot of oil spraying out with the valve cover off. after it ran a while it did it again. I took it to the dealer and they said I need a new motor $7K another shop said topend needs rebuilt $2K, and the last shop said cam bearings but they cannot do them so I should put restore in it(lmao). The biggest problem is I am out of town for work and it is what my wife would be driving if I can get it fixed.. Any help would be great. Thanks

Rangerjoe

Are you sure that the ticking noise is NOT the injectors. I have injector noise on my 04 4.6 with 111K and have since new.

tbmguy

It is not the injectors, after I changed the lifters the noise went away for awhile. you can hear it clearly with the valve cover off. another problem is that now the truck is slowly loosing power as time progresses, you can really feel it going uphill. is there a better type of lifter that I can install or am I destined to replace the heads or motor?

afrazier66

My 2000 4.6 just started ticking as well. It gets louder as i press the gas. However mine has a hole right at the exhaust port making it tick. DOubt this is your problem, but maybe it could help?? Good luck with getting this problem resolved.

mymustanggt

My 2002 F150 4.6L had a very noticable ticking from the passenger cylinder head bank. tried eng flush,oil change etc. Nothing worked. Finally got curious and pulled that valve cover and the cam girdle/hold down bracket. One piece at a time. In the rear girdle I found a piece of hardened gasket material trapped in a little well (in the girdle) which was apparently blocking the oil supply to the lifters. Engine has over 100,000 miles. Put it all back together. runs sweet. Its done this twice same result. I'm guessing that overlap/overhang gasket material, maybe from the timing chains cover gets oil-soaked over time and bakes that material hard. It gets brittle and falls into the pan and gets sucked up by the oil pickup. Only problem with this theory is the oil filter should stop this stuff from going any further. So I'm not sure how its getting in that oil feed line. It's not very big. And with a 4wd I don't want to pull the oil pan its so tight up against the front axle, bet that would be a bear. Not sure if this helps. Worked for me.

Jake-STX

Check your spark plugs. Mine had a ticking for a wile. Then one night wile driving home # 3 and 4 sparkplugs blew out. it was a pain in the but to fix too. would have cost aroud 600 to fix. i did it for less than 60 bucks.

BigBlockOBS

Is your 4.6 a 3v motor. If it is it could be a problem with your cam phaser on that side. If you have done the lifters and it came back that would be my next step. Its a common problem.

tbmguy

First I want to thank everyone for their ideas. I finally got home to look at the truck and found out the problem was exactly what mymustaggt said he had run across. I did notice that the camshaft had some scoring after I fixed it( removed the piece of gasket from the port), so I changed the oil and filter and traded it in. At the time of trade in it sounded fine and ran great, but being that my wife has to rely on this truck when the weather is bad and I am out of town I figured I should get rid of it before it gets bad again. At least I was able to upgrade to a 2010 FX4, so all in all everything worked out.
Thanks again everyone

Fast_V8

Mine is my idler pully look into that.

limoman39

Just had the same issue with my 05 FX4, it is a 5.4 engine but it sounds like the same issue. My truck had an exhaust leak between cyl's 3&4 on the passenger side. I replaced the gasket but it did not solve the problem. Had to completely remove the right side exhaust manifold. After placing a straight edge across all 4 ports the front side of the rear port had about 1/16" gap. I took it to work and planed it using a large belt sander. The cost for the gasket was around 20 bucks. A friend of mine had his done at the dealership, cost him about 600 bucks.
The trick to get the manifold out (it is an extremely tight fit) is to remove all the studs that hold the manifold, then remove the starter to snake it out the bottom. If anyone needs better directions let me know. I can give you detailed directions start to finish. Took me about 8 hours, probably could have done it faster but since it was my first time I took my time.
The ticking is completely gone....
Good luck with yours.
Rick