TheLariat

Hey all. I just bought a 2007 F150 w\ 130k and have a few questions:

• The engine constantly makes a ticking sound. The seller and many of the forums mentioned this was simply the 5.4 phaser tick. He claimed he's drove it this way for years and just deals with the tick. I'm not so sure this is just phasers. With phaser tick shouldn't the noise go away? While it's not obnoxiously loud, or banging, it persists at idle and when giving it gas in neutral. When I pass by cars or close walls I can hear the tick when I'm driving. As a guage of loudness if you close the window you can not hear it. Could this be something more serious like lash adjusters? If it is just phaser tick can I just drive it that way forever?
  
  Video Here (1:14)
  This shows cold startup, revving, and walking to the cab.
  
  You Tube
• I watched the four part Youtube series on the timing job by FordTechMakuloco. Great video series. Do I really need to get the $800 OEM timing kit or are aftermarket kits just as good? What does this forum recommend?
• In that series I noticed he removed the entire cam and all 24 rocker followers. I'm not a mechanic by trade but I've done quite a few timing belts and chains in my life. I have never once had to remove a cam or roller followers. I've just lined the marks, popped the belt\chain, and put the new one on. Sure the cam has slipped and likely valves touched the pistons but the engine was not running. I've never had engine damage from this. I would just put the cam back in position. Do I really need to remove the cam and followers or is he just being ultra safe? I am going to swap phasers too.
• If I have to remove the cam is it a good idea to swap all of the roller followers\lifers or do I only need to swap these if I detect an issue. Once again OEM ford is $400. Can I go aftermarket here.
• With plugs I have a slight hesitation\miss at light load. The engine will buck once or twice. Idle is not terribly rough but sometimes you can see the engine shake a bit. The seller claimed he swapped the plugs from the original motorcraft ones during a tune up (he mentioned the breaking plugs). He told me his mechanic told him that using any other plugs than the motorcraft ones is asking for issues. I'm considering swapping back to the motorcraft ones. How true is this?

TheLariat

Bump. Video added.

dsydave

Not to take away from the detective work you have found, but to share, I had a 2005 Triton 5.4 that had a ticking or light knocking noise when idling, So I asked with my good friend that worked at a local Ford Service place. This problem is one Ford is fully aware of unfortunately. This issue can at times present or mask itself as bad synchronize errors and can lead to poor engine performance or sudden engine choking. The issue is the over engineered 3 value oil pump, it is not able to perform properly over time when idling. So the rockers and other items inside your engines are not getting good oil flow or pressure and thus starts the ticking or knocking sound. This holds true if you only hear the noise when the engine idles and no loud knocking sound when accelerating. The remedy to this is to replace the oil pump with a high performance pump to get proper oil flow when idling. Hope this help and is the remedy for your issue. If not, hope sharing this help you down the road with the 5.4L, I understand its a hit and miss with this engine regarding the oil pump. It solved my issues quickly.

TheLariat

Sorry for the late reply. To be honest what quieted it up majorly was doing plugs. The original owner had non-Motorcraft plugs in there and I had an occasional miss when giving moderate throttle. Swapped to all motorcraft (no breaks luckily) and all is good.