Developed a tick

Ok guys,.. I could use a little advice.....

My '67 Barracuda has a '77 400 in it. I took it to a Cars & Coffee event last Saturday and noticed I had a little lifter tick when the car first started, but went away within a second or two. Drove it to the event and came home (about 20 miles each way).

Sunday night, I decided to put the new components for my steering coupler in. Got everything put in and took it for a test drive to check out the steering. Went through a couple sharp corners and noticed my oil pressure gauge was jumping from it's normal 60 down to 20 and back up to normal (never saw it go below 20, but can't guarantee it didn't briefly), but the ticking returned and didn't go away. Figured I was low on oil and it was sloshing in the pan. Babied it home and into the garage. Oil pressure was holding well all the way home, but it was still ticking constantly. Topped off the oil (it was about a quart and a half low .... I know.... Stupid me!!) and the ticking didn't go away.

Last night a friend came over and we started looking into it. Determined it was coming from the passenger side, and sounded like #2 cylinder. Pulled the valve cover off. Car has stock stamped, non-adjustable rockers on it. The exhaust rocker on cyl #2 seemed loose. It didn't seem to have much play up and down, but it wiggled on the rocker shaft more than the others and you could grab the pushrod and not only easily turn it, but could wiggle it around. Seems like not enough pre-load on the hydraulic lifter.

So my questions are this.... Do I:

A: Replace that lifter in case there is something wrong inside it, or crap got into it. (both lifters seemed pumped up well and couldn't be compressed much)?
B: Order a set of adjustable rockers so I will be able to adjust preload on the lifters?
C: Both
D: Is there a helpful tool that will let me pull those lifters and replace them without pulling the heads?


If the answer is to order adjustable rockers, do I need new pushrods? How do I know what to order (length)?

Any advice would be welcome. I did not build the motor, so I don't really know how it was originally set up in regards to valve height, lifter pre-load, etc.

Thanks!