Lifter tick

[Bboy]

1991 Ford explorer engine that me and my buddy swapped into a bronco 2. Didn't have a problem before we pulled it. I've worked on these engines before (have one in my bronco 2). But while the engine was apart we did a new oil pump, all new gaskets, new timing chain, and 2 new lifters cause their guides were broken. After getting it running it developed a really bad oil leak from the head area, after trying to find it and redoing the intake manifold gasket we put some gasket maker across the back of the engine and realized we had too much back pressure with the cats we put on it, removed a cat and it runs better and only drips a little oil. But there a lifter tick on the passenger side. We did a compression test early on and it was fine, pulled the valve cover and cranked it and there was oil coming out, pulled the rockers off and checked them, 3 were questionable (pictured) he has 2 other part engines that we rockers off of and replaced those 3 rockers. We also swapped out the bolts for it cause they were definitely stretched from being torqued too many times. The lifter tick got quieter but it's still there. With both of them the tick is fairly quiet when your start it up but when it starts to get warm it gets pretty loud. Last night we put in 10w-40 oil just out of curiosity if the previous owner ran thicker oil and that's why we didn't hear a tick... Didn't change anything. Really running out of ideas without dropping a lot of money into new rockers and push rods but not sure that we want to do that until we have a better idea what is making the noise.

 

[410Fortune]

So those rocker arms with the wear on them
How do they get that way? Usually lack of oil to the valvetrain
The lifter fails to pump up fully and allows lash between the rocker arm and pushrod, eventually you get worn out parts and they need to be changed
So the lifter that was under that rocker arm and pushrod is suspect
Usually cylinders 3 and 6 are the worst offenders on the 4.0… they have a hard time getting the oil back there

Did you replace any lifters?

It’s quite possible that while the engine was jostled around, intakes being changed, etc some bits iof carbon or gasket material have clogged some of your oil passages
Instead of 10-40 you should add a quart or more of marvel mystery oil and run the engine see if you can’t get those noisy lifters to pump up

This oil leak that you have now “slowed down” by replacing the intake and removing the cat converters… where is oil leak coming from?

Nice work so far! 1991 4.0 with a lifter tick is pretty common occurrence especially after swapping engines around

You may have to remove the heads and change some lifters
I will take a batch of like 24’lifters (two engines worth) and go through each on, pick only the best 12 for the engine build

4.0 bronco ii is where it’s at! Perfect engine for a bii… mine was 4.0 powered for many years before I finally went v8

 

[Bboy]

We actually ran some seafoam in the oil since I was wondering if there was some carbon or something clogging an oil passage. That was before we swapped to the thicker oil. We replaced 2 of the lifters, we were thinking that they were on the other side of the engine but neither of us remember for sure.

The oil leak I thought was coming from the back of the lower manifold, we pulled it and redid the gasket maker there and it kept leaking and that's when we realized there was too much back pressure from the exhaust... Not positive if that is for sure where the leak is, I need to clean the back off and try and pin point it again.

The 3 worn out rockers were actually at the front of the engine, so cylinder 1 and 2... It does look like the previous owner did 1 new rocker on cylinder 3 though.

Is there a good way to test the lifters? Specifically if we could figure out which ones are actually bad without putting the head yet.