tick from a 1990 2.9

Hey guys, does anyone else have this problem. At random time I'll hear a lifter or valve tick that start quiet and gets to be so loud that i'm afraid that the pushrod will snap, and then it slowly fades away. it's definetly a metallic click, and it doesn't have any correlation with oil pressure. Ive talked to others, and they have changed the cam and lifters, and eventually the siound came back. I'm going today to get a set of lifters, and will change this weekend, although i'm not convinced that it will work.
Any suggestions?

every 2.9 i have ever heard has the same problem. my friend changed lifters and cam and the noise returned in a few weeks. he drove it about 75k miles like that and finally swapped in a 4.0 which bolts up to your tranny.

me and my father just rebuilt one that had same prob but the guy drove it so long that it fried the baring i whould check the oil pump thats what it was with ours they wasnt getting enough lube at times o it made loud noises. and fried baring and then the rods almost went. it was the same prob all the way around i think it could do it for u. well gl man let us know how it goes.

Well, my dad and i opened up the engine :banghead: and found out that my engine is as black as night inside... there's got to be at least a whole 4 quarts of hard, caked on oil on everything, from the rocker arms to the bottom (inside) of the lower intake. but I guess it's all good. The compression, though, was practically perfect, so i just closed it up. For some reason, the ticking hasn't occured much since then, and when it does, it's much quieter. so, who knows what what happened, but i'll leave it alone for now