61 Ranchero Ticking

Or new camshaft? Or pushrods? It needs to be investigated. No one will be able to tell yey or neigh. You need to physically inspect all the parts. When you take pushrods out – I’m safely assuming it’s pushrod engine, right? – roll them on a piece og lass. Should you hear banging, pushrod is bent.
If you have (1961??) oil lifters, then you need to clean them, if the the rest of the above checks out fine.

And you do have valve lifters. I think, for starters, you need to take valve cover off for visual cam inspection, then take pushrods out along with lifters and “squeeze” lifters. Sounds like you have good engine, considering 1961 and still going, so it may be something minor. De gunking.

I vaguely remember these as being solid lifter engines. A deceased aunt of mine had a ’61 Falcon way back when. It could be that in 50 years no one has ever thought to check and adjust the valve lash so maybe it’s just some slightly loose lifters.

If not that then maybe the ends of a few push rods are wearing down due to oil holes being clogged in the pushrods or maybe the ticking is an ignition spark jumping inside the distributor cap or from a plug wire to the cylinder head.

Well, you can’t just remove valve cover and yank this or that and say it’s loose or not. You need to follow a specific procedure, like you do your rocker’s gap check, for pushrods. They will be loose in some cam position and tight in different.
Hold on, your cam is inside the engine, right? Damn, that’s not easy to inspect. You need manual, buddy. Car specific. Preferably, shop manual.
I figure, pushrods and rockers at least are easy access….

If its mechanical lifters, adjust to published lash specification. If hydraulic, tighten half to quarter turn past pushrod being finger tight. The way you can tell the difference quicky is this. If you can jam the pushrod down into the lifter, its hydraulic, if there is no give, its a mechanical lifter. Make sure each valve is closed doing this. Easiest way to see this is looking at each cylinder. If exhaust is fully open, then intake can be adjusted. Either that or just adjust both with particular cylinder on top dead center. There is a round robin way of doing this based on a firing order thing harmonic balancer turn 90 degree sequence, and it can save some time, but I hate that method. All 3 ways work if done right. If my memory serves me correctly, a ford of that vintage should have adjustable rocker arms. Whatever you do, don’t just crank jam nuts down, or your car will not run. Believe it or not, I have seen this done. Later fords have non adjustable rockers and that’s an entirely different situation.

Several sources I checked showed the 144 CI engine to have solid lifters with the 170 having solids or hydraulics depending on the application.

Checking and adjusting lash should not be difficult to do at all on this engine.
Valves should not be adjusted tighter than spec (as in zero) as that can cause valve and valve seat burning.
They should also not be left excessively loose and clattering as over time that can damage cam lobes, push rods, rocker arms, and mushroom the valve stems.