I have a 97 ford f150 ext cab styleside with a 4.6 v8 auto trans. i aquired it as a project but havent made it to starting it. when i first got it had a raddle in the motor. it wasnt a metal to metal tapping but a raddle with a hollow sound like basically to describe it as a baseball card in bicycle spokes. it hasnt gotten worse but actually better since i've had it. it worse at startup but goes away or u can barely hear it when its running and at low rpms. it makes the most noise at high rpms and under heavy loads. now it has started with a bad miss and a shudder and studder when giving it a lot of throttle. when its a slow take off or if u feather the throttle, its fine but when u give it heavy throttle it stumbles and shakes the whole truck. it does it at low rpms when in overdrive also.

any questions?? been told by a good friend that its roller finger rattle from locked up bearings? can the the missfire and shudder from bad coil pack or spark plugs and wires?

 

First check your sparkplugs and make sure they are not loosening and blowing out of the holes. This can be an issue with your MY truck. If thats not the problem then I suspect that you may have at least one collapsed lash adjuster. That will allow the finger follower to flop around out of control and eventually pop off. Sounds like one may have come off which would lessen the noise but give you a drivability issue like you are now experiencing. I would remove the cam covers and take a look at the roller finger followers and lash adjusters. If you can move the followers around with light finger pressure then the lash adjusters are not pumping up hard enough and need to be replaced or you are not getting enough oil and or oil pressure to keep them pumped. If followers have popped off and are laying in the cyl head then again you have broken lash adjusters that allowed that to happen. Sometimes the follower bearings will wear out and the same thing can happen, problem with this senerio is that the follower ususally damages the cam lobe as well. Good luck
The problem could obviously be something else but This sounds like your problem to me.

 

that sounds plausible to the noise change and the performance. which side is it more prominent?

another question is would it also cause mulitple misfire codes? i pulled 12 codes out and 3 of them were misfire codes.

301 - misfire cyl 1
302 - misfire cyl 2
303 - misfire cyl 3

 

Regarding sparkplugs and lash adjusters. Both sides equally capable of both component failures. Both failed components equally capable of the codes you pulled.

 

ok with being said, is there an easier way of detecting the lash adjusters and roller fingers without having to take the top part of the motor and the valve covers off?

 

Use a stethescope ( Harbor Freight $5.00) and listen while placing the probe on the cam covers. If the noise is coming from under the cam covers then suspect the valvetrain. You can listen to most areas of the engine using this method. Removing the cam covers in my opinion is not a big job. No need to remove the intake manifold. Use a 8mm deepwell socket with various extensions and a swivel here and there. Check your sparkplugs first though because there are problems with them working out on early model trucks and cars like yours.

 

i unplugged 1,2, and 3 one at a time and started the truck and it seems to make a huge difference in the sound of the motor but the truck is running sluggishly bad and when i put a bottle of octane booster in it with 89 octane, it got worse to real bad. can a cylinder not firing correctly cause predet?

 

You have more than detonation going on and adding octain booster etc.isn't going to fix the problem. You are going to have to rollup your sleeves and get down to business with this engine and find the problem then go from there on a repair.

 

yea i figured id have to do it sooner than later. thanks for the suggestions.

 

i replaced 1 2 3 coils and plugs still runs rough