so far I’ve got this resolved. The ticking is from the small white worm gear not turning and seemed to be getting jammed. My fix so far was to put a small piece of gasket material between the metal end plate And the plastic housing.
Well i finished doing both output seals on the Transfer case (79 Fj40 one piece) and rebuilt the park brake hub... tried to be so careful about keeping thing clean on reassemble (to reduce the chance of leaks). back together and running now. first drive, all good. only about 15min and then...