04 F150 5.4L is Sick

[Geauxtiger]

Puzzle for the professional and shade tree mechanics:
04 F150 SCrew Lariat. 173k mi of very reliable service...until yesterday.
Developed a severe miss under acceleration. Steady state speed is fine. Also, got a rather loud tick under passenger side valve cover. I haven't driven truck lately (gave it to my son last year), but I have noticed a tick developing whenever son comes/goes down driveway. I was just blowing off the ticking sound as noisy injectors bwfore yesterday. Took it to Ford Dealer this morning. They were already booked for the day, so they could only spend a little time diagnosing. Cylinders 1 and 3 were miss firing badly and 7 missing intermittantly. Made an appointment to bring it back on Monday. They stated that they need to remove the passenger side valve cover to see what's going on under there to cause the now very obvious ticking. Whatever's going in the valve train may be the root cause of the cylinder missing issue...that's their explanation anyway.
Opinions on what the issue may be?
My dealership has always been honest and straightforward with me, so I'm not worried about them taking me to the cleaners intentionally, but I would like to have some ideas to pass on to them when I drop it off Monday.
Thanks!

 

[bdcardinal]

There is a TSB for ticking under the valve cover. The fix is to replace the tappets that are causing the noise. There also can be issues with the VCT's and timing chain tensioners and guides. Also the fuel injectors are known to leak and cause the motor to hydrolock.

 

[NHGUY]

For a minute it almost sounded like it spit one or two plugs out of the head (its a Triton remember).

 

[Geauxtiger]

Thanks. Didn't know about the ticking TSB. Have heard about the VCT/timing chain issues though. But, I wonder if these issue can connect with suddenly developing a miss in 3 cylinders? Well, to be honest, I don't know how 'suddenly' this occurred. He's a typical 17yr old who drives with the radio on and is completely oblivious to any changes in how the truck drives/sounds.

 

[Geauxtiger]

NHGUY, when son got home from school yesterday, the first thing I did was raise the hood and check each and every coil-on-plug to be sure nothing was missing! Been lucky so far though....173k mi of service and all 8 plugs are still there....though it did cost me $1000 back at 105k mi to have the original plugs painfully extracted after they came apart during efforts to change them

 

[bdcardinal]

Originally Posted By: NHGUY
For a minute it almost sounded like it spit one or two plugs out of the head (its a Triton remember).


Assuming it is a 3V motor those spark plugs do not shoot out of the head, they get stuck in the head and break off if you do not use the proper procedure to remove them.

 

[newtoncd8]

I borrowed my brother's 1998 F150 and experienced a similar issue. As I was driving it on the Interstate, the vehicle started to develop a pinging noise, followed by a loud ticking noise and then it started to lose power. It would idle okay, but if you try and accelerate, it had a hard time. It was diagnosed as a head gasket; however, his was a bit different in that, his issue was no compression in cylinders 6 & 7.

 

[Geauxtiger]

Yep. was a really busy time a few years ago, so I let my local mom and pop shop change the plugs and do some other routine stuff. Didn't know about the plug issue at the time...and neither did they. I think they ended up breaking off 3 of them before deciding they had better stop. Had to have it towed to a Ford dealership where 1 tech spent an entire 8 hour day extracting and replacing the plugs.

 

[Zaedock]

Cylinders 1&3 and cylinder 7 are on opposite sides of the block. Without hearing it, I would suspect the VCT phasers or solenoids.

 

[Geauxtiger]

Zaedock, kinda what I was thinking with the misfires on opposite sides. Guess I'll be significantly poorer by middle of next week. Starting to sound very expensive.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: NHGUY
For a minute it almost sounded like it spit one or two plugs out of the head (its a Triton remember).


That's a 2V issue, this is probably a 3V from the sounds of things.

 

[Geauxtiger]

yeah, 3V. I thought I had heard that the 3v also had a history of spitting plugs. Glad thats not true.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: Geauxtiger
yeah, 3V. I thought I had heard that the 3v also had a history of spitting plugs. Glad thats not true.


Nope, just breaking them when they come out, LOL!

 

[Zaedock]

I've seen 2V's with 3, yes THREE, plug threads. I'm lucky that my '03 has the upgraded 5. I also torque the plugs to 28-30 ft lbs instead of the factory 13.

Anyway, my money is on the phasers. Good luck man!

 

[Geauxtiger]

Thanks all for the advice. I'll report back once repairs are complete and my bank account is depleted.

 

[The_Eric]

An outside chance, but I have seen a (2 valve) oil gallery get restricted with some gasket material. It was found by removing the rear most cam bearing cap and cleaning the obstruction.

I'd think that the 3 valve head would be similar enough to suffer the same fate.

 

[Geauxtiger]

thx eric. I'll keep that idea in mind.

 

[Geauxtiger]

OP here.
Well, the verdict is in.....not good.
The_Eric may have had the closest guess. Obviously an oil gallery became plugged. The back half of the valve train on the passenger side was DRY. Extreme scoring of cam. the top of the furtherest back spring was actually dry to the touch and had 'dust' (metal filingg?) visible. Can't really get in there to investigate further since the engine is shoved so far under the dash.
This may explain why the truck began using oil for the first time this year...~1 Qt per 5kmi. May have damage throughout engine due to floating metal debris.
Choices - rebuild top end with 12 mo warranty or install Ford reman engine with 3 yr 100K warranty. After much thought and surfing used truck prices, decided to go with the reman engine.
The good news is that my 7-8k OCI regimine using a variety of oils most discussed in this forum resulted in a pretty clean valve train...just some light varnish on the cam between lobes (and maybe that formed due to very low oil flows for however long this problem has been developing). I may never get to find out what plugged the oil gallery, but I at least feel good that it wasn't due to sludge.

 

[cptbarkey]

sorry to hear that, 173k out of the engine isnt that bad though considering!

 

[Geauxtiger]

My son is the primary driver and he is not happy. Not because dad has to fork out a ton of $ for a 8 yr old truck, but because this weekend is the youth turkey hunt here in La and he does not have a way to get into the club, much less carry his ATV with him with the truck in the shop