Lubrication port beside the decompression lever.

[veggie]

Question regarding the little oil plug right beside the decompression lever on Lister and Listeroid engines.
Is it an access port or a lubrication port?
When are we supposed to drip oil into that plug hole ?

It looks like it would lubricate the cam bushing, but isn't that bearing splash lubricated ?

The manual says nothing bout this port 

[Powdermonkey]

The Lister manual calls out to lubricate the "far side", through the lubrication port (as you mention).  BUT....if you've ever torn apart a Listeroid, you'll immediately notice that the  "far side" bushing really gets no lubrication (save some vapors....).  This, for the twin design.

Thus, Butch told me to consider lubricating this "far side" by way of a lubricate by-pass.  I pull some oil from the oil pump, and by way of external lines, pipe it to a "pipe thread" I've machined into the  "far side" cam follower positioning bolt.  As far as I'm concerned, this adaptation has provided me more than 2,000 hours on my 16/2, with no issue upon that far bearing...

[38ac]

Manual states that you should squirt a bit of oil in that hole if the engine has sat a long time unused. However 99% of the engines have never had that done and seem to not suffer for it.   

[veggie]

I have never opened my Cam oil port. If the bearing is tucked away in an upper corner of the crankcase, I wonder were it gets oil from?
The idea to divert some lubrication to this point seems like a good one. Currently, I'm fitting a pump and oil filter to the sump, so branching
 the return line and running a tube to that port would not be hard to do.

[ajaffa1]

When I rebuilt my Lister CS I looked at providing increased lubrication to the governor end of the camshaft. The problem is that there is a brass bush at that end that has no oil seal. Increased oiling will result in a nasty trickle of oil running out below your fuel injector pump. I opted to replace the brass bush with an oilite bush and hope that splash oiling would do the rest. So far so good.

Bob

[38ac]

I don't think there is anything to worry about on a /1 engine. Ive never seen issues with wear on the cam or bushing on that end and Id guess 99.9% of users don't know about that plug or what it is for. 
Now a /2 engine is a different story. Every twin that Ive been through has serious wear to the bushing due to the increased loading from the fuel pump and there is zero lubrication outside the crankcase for the fuel pump lobe and lifter. Cannot figure out how Lister thought that end of the camshaft would operate without any lubrication?  I add a lube line for that and a drain hoke back to the crankcase except on restorations  where the owner desires originality.

[ajaffa1]

Hi 38ac, I definitely had serious wear on that end of my camshaft. I put it in the lathe and turned the shaft down to fit the next smaller size bush.So I now have an original CS with a metric oilite bush at that end. I also had a lot of wear in the governor weight pivot pins, I reamed them out to fit the next sized high carbon steel rod I could find.
I suspect that some of the wear problems I found were due to poor maintenance by previous owners or the amount of hours it had done.

Bob

[38ac]

Hi Bob, guessing your correct about previous abuses. Most of my work is Amish or ex Amish engines. They are  the worst maintainers of engines there is, LOL.

[ajaffa1]

I suspect that some of our Australian farmers are not much better. Which brings us back to the question of oil and frequency of oil changes. Lister recommended a non detergent oil that allowed particles to sediment out in the bottom of the sump.
Non detergent oils are becoming expensive and hard to come by and provide a lot less wear protection than modern synthetic/semi synthetic oils. Aftermarket oil filter kits are available for CS engines. Has anyone tried fitting one of these and running a detergent oil? What effect did it have on frequency of oil changes?

Bob

[Sir Petteroid]

My 64 cs came off a sheep station in Queensland. It was in exceptional original condition but had been neglected in later years as is so often the case.
The steel bushing was tight and so was the bronze bush. I drop some oil down the plug if it's been idle for a while. I always pump oil with the lever before starting and turn her over before starting. Castrol still makes a thirty weight detergent oil for this type of engine. I do top up the valve wells to lubricate the valve stems.

[dieselspanner]

Hi All

The main bearings on my 3,6,8 / 1 CS Bitza were very badly worn so i replaced them with taper roller bearings and Loctite, 610 I think, as it had the oil pump I diverted the some of flow to the main bearings to the the dry side of the cam, everywhere has plenty now,,,,,

i have no leak from the cam bearing, or the mains, I believe the one way valve on the cover is doing it's job and keeping a slight vacuum in the crank case.

Happy new year to one and all

Cheers
Stef