Just recently the engine started ticking when I first start it up. In subzero weather it would tick for about the first 15 minutes of the drive once the engine started to warm up. I am finding that it goes away faster in warm weather. The truck is almost to 200,000km, and I just had the oil changed to see if it would have any effect on the noise. The noise wasn't affected at all but I did find out that the oil wasn't cloudy from a coolant leak (one of my concerns), though the engine oil was fairly dirty.

The guy recommended a Lucas oil treatment to see if that would help.

Any thoughts?

 

I forgot to add some of the symptoms.

Firstly the ticking is definitely related to the engine speed. More rpm = faster ticking. The ticking happens as soon as I start it up, so it affects neutral as well as drive.

When the engine is ticking the engine oil gage jumps up and down a couple notches on the scale quiet rapidly, vibrating back and forth. Once the engine stops ticking the gauge also stops misbehaving. The gague reads about 3/4 to the right hand side, since the middle marker is 275kpa, it is reading about 400kpa.

When the problem first started to happen there would be a really big jump on the oil pressure gague when I press the gas pedal. It would jump from around 300kpa to 500kpa and back. This behaviour would cease as the engine warmed up.