Yes a removable liner would be better. However, the original chrome plated cylinders were extremely long lasting. When they finally wore out they were re-bored +10 and oversize piston and rings fitted. If Lister carried out the work they would also re-chrome the bore.
I want to explain this a little more for Amarbir's benefit.
First, it is worth mentioning that the original Lister CS engine was designed for extremely long life in a primitive (agricultural) setting in UK and for export. The reasoning was that it was better to make the engine very durable and inexpensive to run at the expense of a higher purchase cost.
By this reasoning, Lister elected to cast an integrated cylinder and water jacket and then apply their proprietary chromium plating to it. In combination with plain iron piston rings this provides an extremely long life for the cylinder, as the piston rings (cheap and easy to replace) wear much more quickly than the very hard chrome plate of the cylinder bore. A Lister CS with weak compression will generally need just some valve work and a replacement of piston rings before it can be returned to service.
I can think of three reasons why the Indian manufacturers of listeroids chose to change to a separate wet sleeve cylinder and water jacket:
- It was cheaper to make the water jacket separately and dig out all the casting sand, then press the cylinder into the water jacket than it was to make the cylinder and water jacket together, which was the most complicated casting on a Lister CS
- It was easier to make a round cylinder out of a round centrifugal casting than it was to bore a stationary sand casting with inclusions and voids to be round and smooth
- Industrial chromium plating is both difficult and somewhat expensive. A properly plated cylinder bore is one of the more difficult forms of industrial plating, and it is possible that nobody in India knew how to do the Listard process (which was apparently nothing more than reversing anode and cathode currents for a few minutes at the end of the plating cycle to erode the bore plating for oil retention). Now we have other, cheaper methods of hardening a cylinder bore surface, such as nitride treatment or electric induction hardening. The original chrome plating procedure would be OK too, if properly done.
The one weak point of the Lister CS in colder climates is that it does not tolerate freezing well, and the water jacket often cracks when water is frozen in the engine. This is what our British correspondent is noting, and why there is a demand for new cylinders in the UK. To be honest, I don't think there's a disadvantage to a properly machined wet-sleeve cylinder compared to the integral cylinder casting of the originals. But there are qualifiers there - the holes in the water jacket casting must be square to its top and bottom faces, and the cylinder bore must be a close fit in those holes with a well-defined O-ring relief in place. I would arrange for a tight slip fit and use RTV and a flange seal rather than O rings, but hey-I'm a 21st century guy.