horrible lifter tap

[mystic04]

i recently purchased a 1998 e150 that had a noise in the top end do to poor maitenence i thought i could fix it easily but now im not so sure after much listening i am pretty sure its a lifter that wont pump up and it taps bad is there a magic potion i can dump in with oil and possibly cure this i have decent mechanical skills but i couldnt imagine pulling the intake on this thing i think id rather be shot at and i already put fresh oil in it it looked like it hadnt been changed in eons i also added a quart of lucas but its not magic enough to fix it are there any other options thanks a bunch

[cmorningstar01]

It is possible that the ball tips on the pushrod are scored from inadequate lubrication and have worn the inside of the rocker arm where they make contact, I had this problem on my 97 4.2, When I first got the truck it already had 160K plus miles on it and it was noisy, The pushrod eventually wore its way thru the rocker and I was forced to pull the valve covers and replace the rocker, I just recently put a set of roller rockers on my truck and when I took all the old rockers off some were showing the same wear that the one that had punched thru did(ball tip on push rod scarred)I went ahead and replaced all the pushrods along with the new rockers and the truck runs very smooth and quiet now, To get to the point is that you may have a rocker arm/push rod with wear.
Val

[mystic04]

thanks for the info ill pull the valve covers and check it out