You can add this additive from Amazon to silence your valve train it worked for me.

 

Wow. Your truck still had that original top hose with the integrated bleed screw. I am truly amazed it made it this long. They were notorious for blowing apart like yours did finally, and that design was updated long, long ago.

The same thing happened to my truck after I replaced and head gaskets 10 1/2 years ago. The system suddenly had pressure in it after years of leaking head gasket and not only did the weeds grew blow out of the top of this, the throttlebody heater gasket started leaking too. When you increase pressure in the system to spec by replacing the head gaskets, the next weak points in the system are revealed.

I was driving home from work when the bleed screw blew out in my truck. I had a golf tee and some duct tape with me, so I pulled into a gas station parking lot, stuffed the golf tee in the hole, wrapped the hose duct tape to hold the tee in place, and limped home.

 

I might need that based on this.. Anyone know what this could be? I shut it off right after the ticking doubled.

 

That is a one hell of tick ! Do you have an exhaust leak as well ?

 

How would I check for that? This is right after replacing the valve cover gaskets and overhauling the rockers, rocker shaft, and push rods, also cleaned a decent amount of the buildup out of the area as well.