What stuff did you put in that oil.
I have had that exact sound off an on for 70,000 miles on 289,000 mile 78 Wagoneer, 4.0
I fixed it finally by adding a quart of MMO, Marvel Mystery oil and running the warmed up engine for about 2 minutes at 4000 rpm. That forces the stuck lifters to rotate again and frees them up, and gets rid of the noise, except if the engine sits a while and you start it in very cold weather, then the noise will return till it warms up and you do the 4000 rpm for 1-2 minutes trick again.
Can you post photos of plug #1, #2 and say #4 for us to read them?
What exactly is it doing now? Have the symptoms changed any?
I think the ticking noise up front is a distraction, not the cause, but may be due to miss fires in cyl 1 and 2 and unburned gas in those cylinders killing the compression and spark. Are the 1 and 2 plugs oil fouled???
Fouled plugs, bad plug wires on those two, criss crossed plug wires or injector pig tails criss crossed, or stuck open injectors could be the issue.
Also check the vacuum line that goes from the lower side of the throttle body directly to the MAP sensor on the firewall. It is common for it come loose at the throttle body and cause the engine to run very rough.
Also, for the start sequence, try to switch the key to run for 5 seconds, then off, then on, then off, then try to start it.
Pull the vacuum line at the side of the FPR, Fuel pressure regulator on the front of the fuel rail that is attached to all the fuel injectors and see if there is any sign of wet fuel or fuel odor. If there is the FPR is leaking fuel into the vacuum and bypassing the injectors.
Keep in mind as you go that you may fix the original problem and later find you created a new problem in debugging process by criss crossing wires or bumping the wiring harness witch may have a loose connection inside in the harness....etc. And thus you may not realize you fixed the original problem. There are sensor grounds in the harness that are notorious for getting loose after all these years that cause the sensor grounds to come and go with vibration or movement as you work on it.
These year jeeps, Renix, 1987-90 are notorious for poor grounds that cause all sorts of starting and running issues.
There is a ballast resistor on the drivers side firewall that can cause fuel pump power issues. You should get a fuel pressure tester and test the fuel pressure while running, with the vacuum line attached and removed from the FPR (see the FSM instructions or old posts here, should get 29-39 psi depending on the vac line connection). Also watch the fuel pressure when you turn the engine off, Does it drop to zero or slowly bleed off to zero??? If yes you have a leaking injector or bad FPR.
Also check the fuel pressure before you crank the engine.
Post up all your results.