Symtoms of a lifter sticking????

I have a 87' 4.0L auto. and I'm getting a "ticking" sound from the front of the valve cover. At first start up, when the engine is cold, it doesn't tick very loud but as the engine gets warmer, the ticking gets louder. When the engine is at normal temp. it is definatly noticable. Is it a stuck lifter? No loss of power, no oil burning blue smoke from exhaust. How do I fix it? Thanx fellers...

Oh, It's got 187XXX miles on her...
Recent oil change...
Recent Valve cover gasket replacement...

Most every time I´ve gone looking for a tick in my motor, it turned out to be a cracked exhaut manifold. Often sounds just like a noisy valve.
A two foot piece of pipe/copper tubing/plastic conduit, will help narrow down, just where the sound is coming from. BUT BE CAREFULL OF THE FAN, with the motor running, no loose clothes. Seriously pay attention, to the fan and belts.
Valve train is gonna loosen up with age, personnaly have never know it to hurt much, just sounds funcky. Sticky lifter would be pretty far down my list of causes. How is your oil pressure? If you run the cylinders to the top of the compression stroke, by hand, one by one, you can shake the intake and exhaust rods a bit (with the valve cover off), after checking a few, you can feel, when one is significantly looser than the others.
If your compression is acceptable and your oil pressure is acceptable, I´d just live with the noise. I´d probably try and refrain from very high RPM´s.
My old 87, was much quieter with 10-40 oil in the summer and 10-50 in the winter, also helped bring the oil pressur eup a bit. I use synthetic, doesn´t get too thick in the winter, makes for easier starting, doesn´t thin as much when it´s hot.

what about a tapping sounds

valves on 4.0's have been known to tap and you really cant do anything about it, not really hurting anything either

I'm going through this right now. I had a lifter collapse which cause the engine to tick and has time went by run pretty rough. Take the valve cover off and make sure its not the valves. The valves will usually clunk or tap as Jaysxj said but ticking can definetely be lifters. If it is the lifters, the cylinder head has to come off.

dean

Thats for the replys. I have good oil pressure and the throttle is very responsive. No hesitation. No burning oil. Just that dang ol' "ticking" noise from number one cylinder. This is not my DD anyway. I may do what 8Mud said and change to 10W-50. I don't know, I may have to think on this one...

Thanx fellers,

Alot of 4.0's are known for piston rattle/slap. The sides on the pistons just don't extend far enough and if the clearance between the piston and the cylinder wall is too great the piston rocks from side to side.

It it is a valve train related noise, pull the valve cover and use a small piece of hose like a stethescope. Put one end to your ear and probe around with the other end. You can also determine a bad lifter by simply holding your finger on the rocker at an idle. The one that is bad will have a much more pronounced vibration/shock.

JaysXJ said:

Thats for the replys. I have good oil pressure and the throttle is very responsive. No hesitation. No burning oil. Just that dang ol' "ticking" noise from number one cylinder. This is not my DD anyway. I may do what 8Mud said and change to 10W-50. I don't know, I may have to think on this one...

Thanx fellers,

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I was a bit bass ackwords, in my oil recommendations, 10-40 winter, 10-50 summer. though I did run 10-50 one winter, didn´t seem to hurt much, oil pressure was noticeably higher, till the motor warmed up. Don´t think I´d run a normal 10-50 (non synthetic), at least here, days of 0 F arn´t uncommon in the winter. Motor cranks over pretty slowly, when the oil is too thick.
Do what Old Man suggested. Even if what you got isn´t life threatening (probably), and just annoying, you may be able to spot a small problem, before it turns into a big problem.