I recently swapped over a brand new set of heads into my 2000 5.9 Dakota RT engine (New valves and springs as well, I re used my pushrods and rockers and made sure to mark and bag them so they would go back exactly where they came from. When I started it up I immediately noticed it was ticking rather loud from the drivers side. Its not an exhaust leak and it gets worse as you rev it, oil pressure is great and the truck runs really good but just... ticks. Did a compression test and it was good as well. I took it to a mechanic to get his opinion and he took apart the valve cover to take a look and said that visually everything looks fine and that the lifter isn't stuck. He said to drive it for about 100 miles and see if it goes away. I don't really agree with that, it never made a noise before. It has fresh 10w-30 oil and filter. I drove it 30 miles home and no check engine. Still ticking as much as before, should I just tear it down again and replace the lifters? I don't think driving it will make it better...

 

Maybe check pushrod length. The valve train on these guys isn't really adjustable....

 

 

Got one of those for knocks?

 

Hello, what was outcome on this? Looks like you used the old lifters, rocker and pushrods? What heads and gasket did you use?

 

it still ticks, ive put about 3k miles on it and it still has good oil pressure. I ended up replacing the lifters and the oil pump to no avail, pick up screen has no bearing material or much of anything on it... its ticked from the drivers side the entire time. The local machine shop has an updated version of magnum heads that are stronger and much less prone to cracking than oem. I used those with felpro gaskets all around. I think next ill try new rockers and pushrods. If that doesn't fix it, then I assume either the header is cracked or somehow its not getting oil somewhere in the top end.

 

I would check the header for leaks/cracks, or just replace the gaskets with Remflex 6004. Could be a pushrod or rocker I guess. Should be plenty of hyd lash in the lifter if nothing was milled to take up the lash in the valvetrain and not cause a tick.

 

Be careful which heads. The EQ's with no casting plugs are good. The EQ's with casting plugs are factory OEM recasts and have the same cracking issue.