friday i changed the fuel filter for the first time since i bought the truck in 2001. first what a headache it was. not like my old toyota truck. why do they engineer these things to be better? i got two of the hoses off with very little problems. but in the back with the two hoses going in one would not come off so i ended up breaking the connector off to remove the filter. put some RTV on the one broken one with the new filter on. let it sit over night until i could drive 30 miles to the only auto place that had the connector in stock. As you would guess it only held maybe ten miles before i started smelling gas so i had the window open the rest of the trip. noticed the fuel gauge going down quick i probably lost a gallon on my trip.

I could not get the old connector off the hose. hose is a hard plastic hose. so i cut it off after checking for available slack. luckily i had about two inches to play with. so the new connector has a flare at the beginning of it and would not go on so i got a screwdriver and stretched out the hose a little. still would not go on. so i got my drill with a phillips head and put in the tube it was tight but i spun up the bit and it heated it nicely and got the flared tip in but would not go any further. so i got an allen wrench cut off the elbow and put it in my drill and stretched it out further still could not get the connector in. mean while about an inch into the tube i put a hole in the fuel line. so i had to be careful not to mess it up more.

New fuel connector tried a little grease to help slide it on and still would not work. So i cut the flared end off the new fuel connector and sanded down the cut area until smooth. Guess what it finally slipped on with no problems. now the hole in the fuel line. luckily it lined up in about the middle of the fuel connectors shaft. so i got two small hose clamps and put them on each side of the hole. the truck is up and running and no fuel leaks.

i attached some pics of the stock fuel filter after i cut it open. when i took it off the gas that came out was nasty looking. i dont know if it was dirt, filter degraded and coming out, or both.

not sure if the filter is white when new or a golden color but this filter was nasty.

 

I never had many issues. Pop up the white clips, pull the lines off and put the new filter on. Reinstall white clips.

 

On mine, just removed white clips and used the fuel line puller on the main line clip

 

Two came off with little troubles that last one was just in love with the old filter or something. No worries it all worked out in the end.

 

Dang that sucks. I hate it when good projects take that ugly turn....like busting a spark plug off in the engine block. I just did my fuel filter at 105k, other than getting sprayed in the face with gas, it was a piece of cake. Took maybe 10 minutes...so there haha