yes, if its ticking bad and you like the engine, get it fixed
You can't fix a bad lifter, replace the bad lifter with a new one.
You can change just the one lifter, however you should determine why it went bad. The intake manifold must come off to get to the lifter. Is there advanced mileage? do you change the oil regularly? Seeing how it is an 87 vehicle, with 19 years of use on the engine, I would strongly suggest changing the full set. Be carefull though as there is the possibility on that engine of 2 different size lifter bores. If yours are oversized it will be stamped on the lifter bore (not on the lifter) 0.25mm 0.5 There should also be a white paint mark at the bore.
16 The 1998 is an 8 cylinder engine. Each cylinder has two lifters. One lifter is for the intake and one lifter is for the exhaust.
it can injury one. and ruin there life
Yes, or it could be a lifter out of adjustment. Some 1973 Ford Torino V8s had solid lifters that must be manually adjusted. Depends on which engine you have. If your engine has hydraulic lifters add a can of Seafoam Motor Tune to your oil. Follow the directions on the can. This will clean the lifters and possibly save you the trouble of replacing one. Click the link for info on Seafoam.
Change engine oil and substitute one of the quarts of oil with one quart of automatic transmission fluid. Run engine for 1000 miles. Change engine oil again with all oil.
Remove the valve cover, and feel the rocker arms, if it is indeed a bad lifter, then you should be able to feel it (feels sharper). Take the intake manifold off, and there is the 4 banger equivalent to a valley cover, it's just a plate. Once you have that off, and the rocker arm disassembled, you should just be able to pull out the bad lifter(s) and put the new one(s) in.
You will ruin the engine and have to spend several thousand for a new one.
A bad balancer can cause failure for more than one reason. First, an unbalanced engine can have severe vibrations set up that will cause material failure in the engine, and it will break internal parts. Second, the balancer can come apart physically outside the engine. If this happens, the loose part can cause damage all over the engine room, and if caught in a belt or pully, jam the crankshaft. I've seen this happen!
Milky means one thing, water in the oil! Generally this means coolant from the engine is getting into the trans usually through the oil cooler in the radiator. This is very very bad and will quickly ruin the transmission.
no go to store and get the wright one for your motor
WOW! I own an 89 Ranger 2.9 and I am going thru the same thing you are. The only difference is that one of my lifter/pushrods is tapping really bad so I'm going to be replacing the lifter on that one. The way I found the tapping pushrod is I took of the valve covers and started the engine to observe the pushrods and see if they were staying wet with oil. Which revieled the bad lifter not providing oil to the pushrod. One thing that helped the tapping is I added half to 3/4 of a quart of transmission oil and ran it for about a week. Transmission oil has a high level of detergent, this was to loosen sludge that may have been clogging the lifter. Then I changed oil/oil filter and added a hole bottle of LUCAS oil stabilizer to the new oil change substituting the proper amount of oil. And as I started the engine I could hear the tapping gradually go AWAY!! I'm still going to change the lifter and also replace the engine oil pump which will run $70-$80 and $20-$30 for the gasket. The lifter was $6 and the intake manifold gasket was $44, valve cover gasket is $11. I'll now need a good/cold six pack of Coors Light, a Styx CD and follow the Chiltons manual very carefully. Wish me luck! Lou From Haleiwa (N Shore) Hawaii