I’ll try to keep this short. 05 LX470. Original 212K mile engine with good history of oil changes. I’ve owned it for the past 3000 miles. Did an oil change after purchase. Oil stays right on full mark- does not burn / leak oil- aside from minor VC weep. Had 3 obvious issues when I purchased: VGRS/VSC lights on, bad lower ball joint, exhaust manifold tick. TX / CO truck most of its life. I fixed VGRS/VSC malfunction. Had a dealer about 45 minutes away (closest one to me) swap in new upper / lower control arms and replace exhaust manifolds and gaskets with OEM parts. Tick used to be constant under any load, but not when revving in park. After manifold work, light tick only under fairly aggressive acceleration on the road. Not really a metallic sound. More like a timex on steroids. I had a local muffler shop ride with me to listen. That mechanic heard the tick and thought it sounded like manifold leak. I did check for loose plugs after getting the truck back and they were loose. One coil stem was cracked. I tightened all plugs to 16.9 ft lbs and replaced the cracked coil with OEM. Maybe it’s placebo, but that maybe helped reduce the tick and make it only appear at even higher loads. So, for this group, has anyone had manifolds and gaskets replaced and still had a slight leak? It appears the dealer replaced all studs and nuts and all studs appear to have an equal amount of threads showing above the nut. The studs and nuts on the headers to downpipes also replaced and I paid for new donut gaskets on those joints so I assume those joints are good. If it’s an exhaust leak I hear, it’s only under load- so a real bitch to pinpoint source when vehicle is parked. Any recommendations on how to proceed to the various rabbit holes? Any harm in retorquing manifold gaskets? Or, maybe the 4.7 just naturally has a light tick / valve train noise under harder loads? I’ve never had a Toyota with this motor. Add’l info: I’ve been running 93 octane. I’ve stethoscoped all injectors and they seem to be all clicking at the same volume and in the same rhythm. I guess I should probably go through and replace the rest of my coil packs at 212K miles just for good maintenance sake. I do have a torn outer firewall / steering column boot and am missing the inner boot that protects the VGRS actuator which could possibly be allowing injector tick / valve train noise into cabin. From all my records, the engine has never been opened for head / valve work. Sorry, I was not able to keep this post short.
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