Slick 50 used to claim that 90% of engine wear took place when you start your engine.

Without oil in the engine, not only will it be difficult to crank, but you'll be scraping metal-on-metal which will accelerate wear dramatically. If you could start your engine right up, it would probably be 5 - 10 seconds before your engine got enough oil that I'd be comfortable. 10 seconds of running without oil makes me cringe, let alone all the cranking that you are doing in the meantime just to get it to fire up.

The purpose of priming is to fill up the oil pump and the rest of the oil passages, and get oil flowing through the parts of the engine that would be scraping.

It is a bit of a hassle, and honestly if you took the lazy route and just went after the ignition problem, I'd understand. But I'd want you to be 100% sure the engine would fire up quickly next time you go to crank it- make sure the ignition is working and the carb has enough fuel to fire up quickly.

-Bob Cunningham
bobc@gnttype.org