Lifters

Don't even waste your time trying to repair such an inexpensive assembly. Put a new lifter in. You won't even find the spring listed at the Ford dealer's parts department. A hardware store spring won't hold up to the constant pounding or the heat, and the originals are usually carefully-calibrated for the application.

Even if you could repair a lifter, how are you going to warranty that repair? If that lifter fails again, or if anything else even remotely related breaks in the future, all the owner is going to know is they are inconvenienced at having to come back again. Every mechanic has horror stories of cases where they thought they were doing their customer a huge favor by repairing rather than replacing to save them money, then they got bit in the butt later when the repair went sour. In every case the customer forgets our good intentions and remembers what they perceive as incompetence. That's why I can replace the nine-dollar brush assembly in my alternator, but I would never do it for my customer. I can replace a pair of three-dollar contacts in my starter solenoid, but I'm going to sell a rebuilt starter with a warranty to my customer. Customers get angry with us anyway, no matter how conscientious we are or how much money we try to save them. Don't give them more chances to be unhappy by trying to cut corners, especially when the part is so inexpensive.

You're in an area that I'm not an expert in. I've heard noisy push rods years ago but I ever repaired an engine for that. If I had to guess, I'd look closer at the right rocker arm in your photo. I see what looks like hairline scratches on it where it contacts the push rod. That surface should be smooth and shiny. If in doubt, I'd mark the locations of the parts, then take them to an engine machine shop to get a professional evaluation.

Normally when you replace a part that develops a wear pattern with a mating part, you must replace both of them, otherwise the worn part will just transfer that pattern to the new part, and you'll have the same problem. In this case I would just replace a rocker arm and its push rod. You might want to replace all of them to insure if this is the cause of the noise, you won't be overlooking anything.

Normally lifters should remain solid under hand pressure. Some may bleed down from the pressure of an open valve's spring when the engine is not running, but they will pump back up very quickly when the engine is started.

Nope. The holes won't line up with the runners in the intake manifold. You have gaskets for two different variations. The dealer's parts department is the best place to get answers to that. You might also try the Rock Auto web site. Look up that gasket for your year and engine, and they'll have a list of gaskets from a bunch of different suppliers, and they'll include the "with this" and "with that" options.

I can only guess about the smoke. It's common for oil to run down the side of the engine when it is disassembled, then it vaporizes and burns off when the engine gets hot. Engine assembly lube does that too, but when it's inside the engine, you don't see it because the fumes get drawn out to be burned.

Depends on what you're torquing. The main thing to worry about is when the rocker arms are adjustable. There's a procedure for setting those.