that's a good trick or suggestion ....
overfilling the oil temporarily.

about letting one sit without oil in it -
In general these days .........I never drain oil out of an engine and let it
sit draining, like overnight.
I find that and confuse the hydraulic lifters some,
and perhaps create an oil pump priming issue.

and it never hurts to pre-fill the oil filter. I do that on all newly
assembled engines for sure.
For just a normal oil change, not usually.

I'm still curious if the poster who swapped maybe just oil pump gears and
the cover plate, put the ultra thin gasket under the cover plate.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tabe Johnson" <greentabe-vanagon@YAHOO.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Sunday, March 07, 2010 8:22 PM
Subject: Priming the oil pump

> One time I did a head gasket job on a Subaru GL.  All the oil drained out
> of the galleries while the engine was out of the car.  When I put it back
> together, added oil, and tried to start, I got no oil pressure.
> Eventually, after a lot of fiddling, I added an extra 4L of oil, cranked
> it for a few seconds, and as soon as I had oil pressure, drained the extra
> oil.
>
> Have to be careful about how much oil you add is all - don't want to
> hydraulically lock anything!  You can do a lot of damage that way
>
>
> tabe johnson/ex 87 westy