I have what I believe to be a lifter ticking that has over the last few weeks gone from subtle and intermittent to pronounced and fairly steady and now it sounds like two of them are doing it. Since the noise became less than subtle I have stopped driving it for now. The motor has 7000+ hours and 268K miles on it but other than this issue runs great. It has low oil consumption (less than a quart over a 5K change interval with synthetic) and I have replaced everything on the left side of the motor that spins including the timing chain, gears and adjuster (had to take the cover off to fix a leak and figured what the hell while I was in there) and would like to keep it going. Can I just replace these lifters if the cam still looks good and figure on going about my business or is there a more that should be done in order to trust that the engine is good to go again? The pushrods aren't that much and could be replaced as well. I believe the rocker arm bolts have to be replaced once they are removed. So I am thinking about getting lifters, pushrods and bolts for it and keeping her going as I really like the car. I would hate to drop a bunch of money into it (it needs tires as well which I will get if the motor sounds healthy again) only to find out I have another significant issue just waiting to appear. The only things I think I should have to expect soon would be the coils at some point, or the valve springs, which if I keep the revs down I am hoping to avoid. I can live with those pending problems but don't want to have to get into anything requiring pulling the motor apart significantly.
I guess I will need valve covers gaskets. Do I need to pull the LIM or can the lifters be replaced by just pulling the covers and the rocker arms? \Thanks in advance for your thoughts/advice.