Normally Listers have an extension on the camshaft, sticking out through the timing cover. The extension has a keyway on it, and the engines come with a special two-handed crank-handle that has a spring-loaded pin that engages in the keyway. You slide on the handle, turn it clockwise until the pin engages, release the smoke stop on the injection pump so it will over-fuel during starting, flip the decompression lever, turn the crank clockwise as hard as you can for ten turns or so, then flip the decompressor while continuing to crank as hard as you can. When it starts, you pull the crank off the spinning camshaft, and push the cut-off on the injection pump back down to re-engage the smoke stop. In warm weather it is a few seconds of hard work, but it fires right up. In cold weather, there is a ritual involving injecting a measured amount of engine oil into the intake pipe before you do all that. If it's a two-cylinder 1.25 litre like mine, you will collapse with a heart attack before it actually starts. I whimped out and fitted a starter motor for cold weather starting. Second-hand it cost three times as much as I'd paid for the engine and generator.
The Lister plate will give the model number and the rated power and speed, quoting the British Standard procedure under which it gives that power.
Parts for Listers are unbelievably expensive - don't throw any away, you'll end up repairing them rather than replacing them.
