The cam chest contains 24 drain holes to allow excess oil to drip back into the sump. The camshaft itself sit below the level of these drains in its own little sump that contains no drain holes - presumably relying on the centrifugal thrashing of its lobes to dispel excess oil and debris. This sump will be the last place in the engine to receive any oil once the beast is started as the feed is by gravity down the push rods from the rocker assembly. The cam follower blocks have a small square cut-out on each side to allow oil to feed into, and be thrown out of, the camshaft sump. Oil is also restricted from flowing between each cam block group by the camshaft bushes.
In order to give the camshaft a fighting chance during the first few minutes of running I thought that it would be considerate to feed it a little oil. This can not be achieved easily by pouring copious quantities of the slippy stuff into the cam chest as the oil would probably drain into the main sump, through the 24 drain holes, faster than it could dribble into the cam sump. So - I carefully covered each adjacent drain hole with a finger and pumped about a gill of oil into each cam block aperture until it started to bleed out of the other side. There was a very entertaining play on the radio at the time.
I really object to the way that the camera flash makes the casting look grimy. Anyway, the front of the engine was lifted onto a block to give clearance to fit the 4 pump mounting studs. A new gasket was cut for the oil pump mating face.
