Tee Dee 049 conrod lubri-hole

I purchased a NIB COX 049 Tee Dee recently. This is probably from a pre-1973 series as the venturi has no mash on it and the collet is anodized gold. When disassembling to remove gummed oil I noted something I have never seen in a multitude of COX engines I have ever owned: the lower bearing of the conrod has a small hole drilled on it to facilitate the crankpin lubrication.


I checked it on some of my other Tee Dees both could not find the hole on other pre- and post 1973 engines.
I checked the piston history in various COX literatures on the net but could not find any trace of the lubrication hole...

I know the COX production was sometimes inconsistent in terms of collet colors, anodization, etc. depending on the competitive situation on the market, but that was more or less changing cosmetics only.


There must have been a reason for COX to put that hole there - though, some of my COX engines have run north of 50 hours with still only minimum cranckpin wear on them... thus I assume COX recognized the hole is probably superfluous.

Anybody has seen/read/heard about it?