Checking for the broken retainers can be pretty involved job, I'm not saying you should do it because it might be something else. I'm just putting it out there that I had the exact same problem, tried fixing with a ape manual cct just like you lol and it still ticked. I rode it and eventually the tick came back really loud after a short ride. I took it to the shop where they took it apart and showed me the broken clip on the intake side. They were amazed that it still ran lol.
You probably want to wait for someone with more experience to give you some other things to check before diving in that deep or take it to a trusted shop as a last resort.