Rocker arm tick - Experiences?

[manimal]

4.0 OHV has a light but very annoying occasional valve tick. I'd like to replace the rockers, but I'm wondering how much money I'm going to end up spending once I start cracking bolts. For those of you that have repaired your rocker tick, how many of you had to replace collapsed lifters as well? I don't mind doing the rocker arm assembly, but lifter replacement... That's there the cost is really going to bite me in the ass. So I'm wondering how often the 4.0 really suffers from lifter failure.

At the very least, the inside of the valve covers looks very clean. I only run synthetic oil, all highway miles. Should be clean in there so I'm hoping the lifters are fine.

 

[Creager]

Unless you see a rocker that’s not touching its valve, then there probably isn’t anything wrong with the hydraulic lifter. Worst case scenario, you would end up spending somewhere around $500 to replace the broken lifter and rocker arms. $150 for the felpro head gasket set, $250 for the rocker arms and pushrods from delta cams, $50 for lifter. The head will have to come off to replace the lifter.

Now, if all you are going to do is replace the rocker arms and pushrods, then all you will need is the rocker set and a good set of valve cover gaskets (id recommend the ford replacement or the Felpro Perma-Dry gaskets, no cork, cork = leaks).

It might be a good idea to remove the lower intake, but it isn’t required to replace the rocker arms. If your engine has a lot of miles a good cleaning, new gaskets, and fresh torque can go a long way. Reinstallation can be a little tricky with the felpro gasket. If you have never done this before, or you simply don’t want to worry about oil leaking out the backside of the engine later on, I’d recommend the replacement gasket from Ford ($30). Otherwise the felpro lower intake gasket set is pretty much the same price, and can be made to work fine. I just find the Ford gasket a little friendlier to install (as it doesn’t require mountains of RTV to complete the seal).