I've never had a problem priming mine and most of the time I don't even need to use the priming lever. I don't find the maintenance on it hard either. But the loose impeller cover is annoying.
If you have trouble priming it just hook a pump to the intake best experiment I ever tried. Like I said earlier I broke the priming lever and really did not want to chunk the dam thing hooked a maxijet to the intake and now I'll never use the priming lever again