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Pete · 06-28-2013, 05:09 PM

All Ford lifters were ground flat in the early days. I don't know exactly when they started
doing them with a taper but it was probably after the war.
The reason for the taper is to make the lifter rotate which makes it last longer.(even wear)
The cam is ground with a matching taper. All new lifters are taper ground as far as I know.
As a side note, the original Ford drawing spec called for a 96 inch radius on the lifter face.
I have checked many NOS lifters and they are NOT ground radiused (spherical). They are straight tapered. Also, Ford did not have any grinding equipment capable of spherical radius grinding.

06-28-2013, 05:09 PM	#5
Pete Senior Member Join Date: May 2010 Location: Wa. Posts: 5,419	Re: lifter weights All Ford lifters were ground flat in the early days. I don't know exactly when they started doing them with a taper but it was probably after the war. The reason for the taper is to make the lifter rotate which makes it last longer.(even wear) The cam is ground with a matching taper. All new lifters are taper ground as far as I know. As a side note, the original Ford drawing spec called for a 96 inch radius on the lifter face. I have checked many NOS lifters and they are NOT ground radiused (spherical). They are straight tapered. Also, Ford did not have any grinding equipment capable of spherical radius grinding.