2004 Ford pickup 5.4 liter motor tick noise
the motor on my son's 2004 Ford pickup, 5.4 liter motor has started making a ticking noise after it's warmed up, 94,000 miles, truck is in excellent condition other than this minor ticking noise. ...
Forum Discussion
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The noise is probably from the exhaust. The bolts are known to corrode and even be missing. Normally this means more noise cold though. When warm, the metal expansion tends to close the gap.
One of the unpleasant things I learned about my Ford Triton V10 (same as V8) was that the passenger side cam tensioner is more likely to fail, or at least fail 1st. The reasoning is that Ford makes the left and right cylinder heads somewhat symmetrical. They aren't interchangeable, but the oil gallery feed for the driver side feeds from the front of the engine, directly above the oil pump, a short path. The heads being symmetrical, the passenger side head gallery therefore feeds from a long path, starting at the rear, after the oil has already traveled all the way back, feeding the engine crankshaft main bearings and of course leaking along the way.
Then starting from the rear, this RH side head allows the oil to travel back towards the front of the engine, now leaking out of each cam bearing along the way of course, until whatever pressure is left finally arrives at the RH front passenger side cam tensioner. If for any reason, the general oil pressure is not high enough because of wear etc, the pressure to this RH side tensioner is particularily anemic compared to the LH.
When discussing oil pressure, keep in mind that the Ford pressure guage is not used as a guage, but rather is connected directly to the on-off (digital-like) oil sending unit that controls the idiot light. Ford uses a small resistor on the back of the guage to cause the full 12v signal to move the guage needle as though the guage were measuring a nice analog pressure. So the guage only needs about 5 to 7 pounds to trip the idiot light and make it look like there is great oil pressure.
An anemic pressure from a worn engine, if that is the case, particularily allows that RH cam chain to slop around, sometimes whipping the aluminum timing chain cover, and make noise. I'm not sure about feeding the 2004 RH hydraulic phaser since my older 2000 engine didn't have them, but there is a good chance that they are operated by the same, hopefully adequate, leftover pressure as the RH tensioner. To make matters worse, the heads contain an oil limiter restriction right right where they pick up pressure from the block gallery (off the shortblock deck). Sometimes this gallery literally becomes plugged by debris resulting in total cam failure on that side. Keep in mind that the camshafts run right in the aluminum head casting... there are no hardened bearing inserts.
The repair trick is to isolate the unwanted sound via stethoscope and determine precisely where it is coming from before deciding a course of action and budget.
Because of the relatively long stroke, if I were to race one of these Triton engines at high rpm where some oil starvation always occurs, I would plumb a direct short route from the front oil pump to the RH tensioner/phaser, exactly like the already standard path for the LH.
Don't let this info scare you too much, these engines are quite reliable. I wish your son good luck and hope the ticking is a minor problem, which it very likely is.
Wes
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The noise is probably from the exhaust. The bolts are known to corrode and even be missing. Normally this means more noise cold though. When warm, the metal expansion tends to close the gap.
One of the unpleasant things I learned about my Ford Triton V10 (same as V8) was that the passenger side cam tensioner is more likely to fail, or at least fail 1st. The reasoning is that Ford makes the left and right cylinder heads somewhat symmetrical. They aren't interchangeable, but the oil gallery feed for the driver side feeds from the front of the engine, directly above the oil pump, a short path. The heads being symmetrical, the passenger side head gallery therefore feeds from a long path, starting at the rear, after the oil has already traveled all the way back, feeding the engine crankshaft main bearings and of course leaking along the way.
Then starting from the rear, this RH side head allows the oil to travel back towards the front of the engine, now leaking out of each cam bearing along the way of course, until whatever pressure is left finally arrives at the RH front passenger side cam tensioner. If for any reason, the general oil pressure is not high enough because of wear etc, the pressure to this RH side tensioner is particularily anemic compared to the LH.
When discussing oil pressure, keep in mind that the Ford pressure guage is not used as a guage, but rather is connected directly to the on-off (digital-like) oil sending unit that controls the idiot light. Ford uses a small resistor on the back of the guage to cause the full 12v signal to move the guage needle as though the guage were measuring a nice analog pressure. So the guage only needs about 5 to 7 pounds to trip the idiot light and make it look like there is great oil pressure.
An anemic pressure from a worn engine, if that is the case, particularily allows that RH cam chain to slop around, sometimes whipping the aluminum timing chain cover, and make noise. I'm not sure about feeding the 2004 RH hydraulic phaser since my older 2000 engine didn't have them, but there is a good chance that they are operated by the same, hopefully adequate, leftover pressure as the RH tensioner. To make matters worse, the heads contain an oil limiter restriction right right where they pick up pressure from the block gallery (off the shortblock deck). Sometimes this gallery literally becomes plugged by debris resulting in total cam failure on that side. Keep in mind that the camshafts run right in the aluminum head casting... there are no hardened bearing inserts.
The repair trick is to isolate the unwanted sound via stethoscope and determine precisely where it is coming from before deciding a course of action and budget.
Because of the relatively long stroke, if I were to race one of these Triton engines at high rpm where some oil starvation always occurs, I would plumb a direct short route from the front oil pump to the RH tensioner/phaser, exactly like the already standard path for the LH.
Don't let this info scare you too much, these engines are quite reliable. I wish your son good luck and hope the ticking is a minor problem, which it very likely is.
Wes
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