Ford Galaxie 302 making ticking noise?
 

My 1969 Ford Galaxie 500 302 V8 has a slight problem. I have tuned it and everything it runs great, but theres a noise thats slightly worrying. While running theres a loud ticking noise. Loud to the point where I can hear it on the highway. And it seems louder on the highway than it does on regular roads. It is definately part of the engine as it speeds up as the cars speed does.

I had one idea on what it could be. I have a hunch that the valve seals/seats (if those are the same thing) are going bad. There is a significant amount of oil on the spark plugs from inside the cylinders. Im also pretty sure it has bad piston rings but I know the valve seals can have the same oil effect.

Suggestions? Ideas? I mainly want to fix the ticking for now. I know it can become a problem eventually. When I start my new job in a couple weeks I will probably replace the valve seals anyway but I want to try and pinpoint this problem!

Someoneee anyonee?

Welcome to the sight, first off if it was the valve seals it will smoke for about 10 secs. after you first start it up then stop. I have a feeling that you may have a lifter that is weak and not opening the valve all the way or the push rod could be bent just enough to have some slack in between the lifter and the rocker arm or more than one. usually if the plugs are wet from oil it means that the rings are pretty well worn out

So I should put in new valve seals, and push rods, and make sure all of my rocker arms are tight enough? How would I go about finding out how tight they should be? And do I need to do anything special when replacing the push rods? Or can I just slide out the old ones, and slide in the new ones?