Oil pump priming question

67Dart273 said
Air has nothing to do with the oil gauge. If you actually have pressure, the gauge will read, air in line or not. You sure you are not over-tightening the line fittings so much that the compression is squeezing the line?

I'd remove the line/ gauge, and hook them up to an air source, regulator or inline valve if possible, and "see what you have."

Most likely plug left out is the "trick" one that is INSIDE the engine down by the distributor bushing. You can see that by pulling the dist. with a flashlight. There's been a couple of members on here actually got them back in through the dist. hole. If not you could pull the intake

View attachment 1715339934

So I checked both of the plugs in front and back of the distributor shaft, both were there. If the plugs were out on the back of the engine would it run down into the bottom front of the transmission bell housing? Nothing leaking there and I looked and felt around inside the bottom of the bell housing and it is dry all along the bottom. Or would the oil drain into another part of the transmission? Was hoping I would have to drop the trany to check the plugs back there.