5W/30 is way to light for this time of the year.
As for the noise, you better stop driving it ASAP.

 

I don't recall hearing about the crushed piston skirts in all my research. Can you tell me more? Long list of items replaced/tweaked/no oil pressure issues, no leaks now or ever...

 

stop driving ASAP because of the noise or the leaks?

 

Its a pretty common cause of that type of ticking in general. Ford 4.6es in the late 90s/early 200s are notorious for it. The one in my '97 F150 has been doing it since about 50k miles (it has well over 200k on it now).

The only place I can recall seeing it referenced specifically with LR motors is here.

 

Leaks.

Where is the coolant leaking from? That's what you want to address #1 asap. Also, you do not want it leaking into the engine via the head gaskets (if they are failing or bad). That's why we asked ya to check the oil cap, smelling it, see if the dip stick was milky with coolant that had leaked/mixed in etc.

Yeah, If you overheat these engines hard and fast, that's bad. If you fill the engine up with coolant, that's really bad...

Don't worry about the tick for now, let's tackle that coolant leak.

 

Thanks. I will check again tonight more thoroughly to see if I can locate the coolant leak. I have not noticed any coolant drips or puddles on the floor. The coolant is keeping it's level. The dealer was the one who told me about the coolant / oil leak.

 

1 quart every 750 miles or so is a lot of oil leaking. You should be able to pin point that fairly quickly I would think.

 

Agreed. The leaking has slowed considerably (no drips this AM on the ground) since my mechanic performed a good amount of service work a few months back. I meant to bring the list of what he did in to work, but forgot. I will post that tonight or in the AM. thanks again.

Why I wasn't more cognizance of what he did at the time is because I just wanted him to make it run as smooth as possible (it was rough at the time) so I could sell it. Now, I want to keep it so I'm trying to learn all I can so pardon my noviceness.

 

tick could be an exhuast leak, can you isolate the noise to a specific area or side? does it change with engine rpm? is it constant or variable?

if its exhuast, have a helper cover the muffler for a few seconds see if you see any smoke comming from the exhuast manifolds or where the ypipe meets them. mine actually had 2 blown gaskets at the ypipe to manifold and only had 100k miles. it had ticking which i figured was lifter but also had another suttle tick... after i sucked some cleaner in i saw the white smoke comming from the engine bay, really good indicator for finding exhuast leak points since its pure white and very apparent!