Can anyone discribe to me the difference in a exhaust leak and a lifter noise...

I have what i think is an exhaust leak from the passenger side of my truck but i can't seam to find the leak so my pop thinks it could be a bad lifter...

My truck has 55,000 miles on it.

Can anyone explain the difference in noise between the two for me so i can make a better informed decision on what to do?


If it's just exhaust leak i'm goign to get my Roush Off Road and i'll fix it when i have the exhaust apart but if it's a lifter i need to get it down to my dealer before my 60,000 mile powertrain warranty is up.

thanks!

 

it could be your phasers, what motor is in it

 

it's a 5.4L...

i don't think it's the Phasers...i have heard that before and this is different...

 

i dont think overhead cams have lifters but it could be a loose timing chain tentioner. have someone plug the tail pipe with a rag for a few seconds while someone else is up front trying to hear a leak

 

The 5.4 has lash adjusters, simillar to lifters only no push rod, and yes they can and do go bad and sounds like a noisy lifter. I recently replaced new lash adjusters, new rocker arms, new cam and valves in my 5.4 on the passenger side. My problem was that the rollers on two of the rockers stopped rolling. So instead of the cam gently rolling over the rocker arms and opening up the valves, the cam was slamming aganist the rockers and making a verry annoying ticking noise, and causing a lot of damage. I would describe an exaust leak as more of a pop, pop, pop and lifter or lash adjuster noise as a tick, tick, tick, if that makes any sense. My truck had 140k miles so warranty was not a option so I did the work myself and still spent a couple of thousand on parts and head work. And to get the pass side head off takes a tremendous amount of work. When your done its just a bare block sitting between the frame rails. If it were me and I had a warranty I would take it and have the noise located and fixed. If its just an exhaust leak, no big deal, if its in the head your looking at several hours and several $'s without a warranty. Also I called several machines shops from Florida to Michigan and was told that the earlier model 3v 5.4 heads are notorious for this problem, two people told me that 95% of the time when they get a head to work that it is the passenger side. Not trying to scare you, but I would take it somewhere where there is a reputible ford mechanic and get it looked at before the warranty runs out.

 

ok, thanks smotherss. i'll take it to a friend of mine thats a mechanic for ford. i'm sure he can take it into work and diagnose the problem. Anything that may be serious i like him to look at it because i know i'm ging to get an honest answer.

hopefully it's an exhaust leak but i can't find one so i'm thinking their is something wrong.

 

well, truck is going to the dealer tomorrow. this morning i started it up and it was running so rough it shut off. I'd step on teh gas and the truck just shakes and sputters.

The noice is still there on the passenger side of the engin so it's going back in to be fixed.

I sure hope they get this S*&T fixed this time. i'm getting tired of going down there.

i'm up to at least 12 visits int he last year now with my truck from anything like the window not going up to now engin noise, heater doesn't work, exc...

getting annoyed a little now...i'm a ford guy until the end but this is getting a little out of hand for paying over 30K for something...

 

ok, so the truck is fixed. it was the exhaust manifold. The dealer said it was warped so they replaced it and the studs and nuts and it's about as quiet as the day i drove it off the lot. Now lets hope thats the last problem i ever have...

 

Ahhh, bad window switch, huh. Join the club. Half of the members here (myself included) have replaced theirs.