My 07 with the 5.4 had a ticking pretty much since new....I researched it, and asked the dealer, and came to the conclusion it was normal, and just endured it instead of having the dealer tear half the engine down.Lord knows what other problems would show up later from a top engine exploration.
Any way, while I was crawling around underneath my truck, just before the warrantee expired at 3 years, I see a tube hanging.WTF is this?
Here is a i/2 to 3/4 inch rubber tube that was supposed to be connected to a plastic box with some other wires involved.
Well I researched and found out it was part of the vapor recovery system of the fuel tank. It was defective from the factory in my opinion, because it was supposed to be pushed in and quarter twisted to install, but it would not stay connected.I carefully removed the entire hose and valve box assembly, and it appeared the flange was not molded properly.
The piece I needed was about a nickles worth of plastic, but could not be bought separate.800 bucks plus was the price of the component.
I am NO fan of dealerships, and they did not want to address this problem, so I said screw you guys and used a series of wire ties to fasten the tube properly. The kicker was totally unexpected....the ticking I was told was normal 5.4 noise STOPPED!
Upon further research, I have determined that the valve that opens to burn captured vapors from the fuel tank was making the noise because it was open to atmosphere.
So if you have ticking, and also have a hose hanging down just in front of your spare tire, you might have the same problem. Good luck.