Hey all,

I have an 04 FX4 SuperCab I bought with a bad engine last October. The phasers went bad (go figure), timing chain jumped, and the oil pressure dropped according to the previous owner. I brought it home and started tearing it apart hoping it would be a relatively easy and inexpensive fix. Wrong. My dad and I dropped the oil pan and found chunks (not shards) of metal in it. So long story short, 4 months later the truck now has 2 remachined cams and crank, honed cylinders, new pistons rings phasers, the whole 9 yards. Basically a new engine. First time we fired it up, ran and sounded like a charm. Second go round we got a ticking noise coming from the drivers side cam cover. No diesel sound like a bad phaser, just a tick associated with the rpms. I know there's probably a thousand threads on this, but I could really use some input on if it's normal or not because it's subzero temps here in Minnesota and I'd rather not tear it apart if I didn't have to. Thanks for any help.

 

I also have an 04 fx4 supercab. I had alot of problems with timing and the cam phaser knock, so after about 6 months of dealing with the dealership i got a different engine. all good now. Anyways if its a light to medium sounding tick it should be normal. Most of the f150s do it. The cam phaser knock sounds substantially different than the normal "ticking", hopefully someone else can give you some input on the ticking sound, im not all that experienced with ford sounds haha. just putting in my 2 cents and from what ive read on ths forum.

 

i've got an 04 screw xlt with the 5.4 3v engine. mine ticks just as well, far as i can tell it is normal operation and its been like that since i bought it 6 years ago, i'd say if its running good drive it, if it gets real loud or worse you may have an issue. i mainly notice the tick noise in mine when i'm at a drive through or somewhere the sound can bounce of a wall.

 

Thanks for the responses guys. I took it to my local Ford dealer and had a mechanic listen to it. As soon as he heard it his first suggestion was to pull the valve cover and check my valve adjustments. He said there could be too much backlash on one or more of my valves. Thinking back to the assembly, I dont recall any sort of adjustments on my valves or any part of the assembly? Does anyone know if its possible to do this or was the mechanic just blowing hot air? I have a little over 600 miles on it now and it still seems to be running well. No hesitation or anything, just the ticking noise which is really annoying but the noise hasnt changed any so I guess that means whatever the is making the noise isnt getting any worse.

 

I also had a ticking noise on my 08 supercrew, 5.4 and it was driving me nuts. i dealt with it for almost a year, until i noticed it got a touch worse.to me it sounded like an exhaust leak, so i had the dealer work on it under wartranty. and they wound up replacing the pass side exh manifold and vct solenoid. sounds like a charm now. they say that these exh manifold do warp and cause a bad seal.