Hey guys, I'm hoping someone could ID this noise for me and at least get me researching in the right direction. It's a 2003 Ford Ranger XLT 4.0L V6 4x4. Here's the link to the video I recorded today (put it on my Flickr account):



Anyone have any ideas? I'd guess it's a broken valve spring? I have no clue how to even begin changing one if this is the case. Anyone have any pointers? I'd like to take it to a shop in town (probably about a mile or two away), but I'm going to take a wild guess and I probably shouldn't be driving the truck anymore...

This of course happens literally hours after I replaced the speedo/odometer portion of my instrument cluster so it would pass state inspection next week

__________________
2003 Ford Ranger XLT, 4.0L, Extended Cab, 4x4, 5-Speed Manual

Managed to pull the driver side valve cover this afternoon. A little labor intensive but pretty straight forward. Here's what I found...







It looks like either the guide or tension took a dump causing the chain to flap around. Looks like it chewed up the top of the valve cover in the process. I'm surprised it didn't jump time and blow the engine. I still wasn't sure if this was my sound so I compared to another video and sure enough it sounded spot on -
Looks like this can be upwards of $2,000 to fix. With the rusting on the rockers, bed back corners, and some components underneath, I'm not even sure if it will pass inspection. I guess I'll be stripping what I can and offloading it to the highest seller

__________________
2003 Ford Ranger XLT, 4.0L, Extended Cab, 4x4, 5-Speed Manual