Can anyone provide information on Fuel Filter replacement for a 95 2500 6.5L Turbo? Is anything special required.

Thanks in advance!

If you've got the same filter I have, you can screw open the black plastic ring that sits on/around the filter. The filter element should have a plastic label at the bleed cap; the plastic label is there to pull the filter element out after the ring is loose.

It can be a good idea to remove the Diesel that remains in the filter bowl and to clean out the bowl from any residues, so there.

Put the new filter element into the bowl and tighten the black plastic ring. Open the bleed cap and crank so that some fuel comes out of the cap. Close the cap and you're done.

If you've got a manual, check it out --- the precedure is very well described in mine.

It can be helpful to have something at hand to put the old filter element into --- it's sucked with fuel that will drop off of it. If you want to clean out the bowl, you'll need a pump or something like that to get the fuel out of it. When bleeding the filter, some tube that fits onto the outlet of the filter cap can be used to catch the fuel that comes out of it (put the other end of the tube into a bottle). Otherwise, the fuel will run down the engine onto the ground. If it touches hot parts on the engine, it might catch fire (unlikely, though, it's a very 'intelligent' design) ...

You need to either clean the bowl or to bleed the filter to get the residues out, so don't omit that step! If you leave them there, they can get into the injection pump ...

When you are at it, it might be a good idea to drain the water seperator. There's a small T-handle to open it, the stuff coming out of it runs more or less straighly onto the ground if you don't put something under there to catch it.

Thanks Olee!

These filters a not designed as will as the old 6.2 units and can pass dirt through to the injection pump while changing them. Part of GM's sell more parts campaign.
The fuel filter is designed to have the fuel supplied to the injection pump come from 1/2 way up the inside of the bowl. If you just remove the filter without draining off the water seperator first you run the chance of debris from the filter mixing with the fuel remaining in the bowl and thus going directly to the injection pump when you start up.
To keep this from happening open the cock on the top of the filter, then attach a brake bleeder pump to the water drain line, open the drain line and pull a vacuum on the bowl until about a cup of fuel has been drained out. This has lowered the fuel level in the bowl below the outflow point and thus any remaining fuel will be forced through the filter before it goes to the injection pump.
It will take longer to prime the filter doing this but may save you a $1400.00 pump.
Personally I do not change my filter against a milage schedule just for this reason of cross contamination. Using Stanadyne additive I have never had a water in fuel light and the last filter I ran for 70,000 miles.

I agree with Howie about draining off the fuel. I also drain the bowl with the engine running first through the water drain cock to take care of most debris. Then I shut down and open top valve on filter and suck out fuel from bowl through drain cock. It seems obvious that if you don't you are mixing all that crud around in the fuel in the bowl and then dropping a clean filter into it. Some of that dirty fuel ends up inside the filter element and right straight to your IP. Don't know if I'd personally go 70k between changes though.

How often do you change the fuel filter?

I'm getting Diesel of good quality throughout Europe, it's clean and has no water in it :) So I've no idea when I should change the filter; I did it only once yet (within 83kkm).

I too really like to pay attention to keeping the fuel system clean starting with wiping the pump nozzle before I fill. Draining the filter body before opening is must and you can greatly increase the filter and lift pump life by adding a filter to the fuel line before the lift pump.

I have been running a Racor 30micron on the line and it seems to be working out very well. Before I added the racor I was changing every 60,000km, but now I am going to extend that to 120km with the 30u pre-filter.

I don't mean to sound stupid (my first diesel) but from what I understand. I unscrew the top black cap of the filter and the filter should just lift out of the housing? After the filter is removed I can use a brake bleeding pump to suck the fuel out of the housing? When I install the new filter how does the fuel come out the top of the cap piece? how do I drain the water seperator and where is it? sorry for the dumb questions.. I bought the Haynes manual today and it's totaly useless. Talks mostly of the old 5.7 diesel. I'm sure to get this soon.

Thanks

Dave

> I unscrew the top black cap of the filter and the filter should just
> lift out of the housing?

More or less, i. e. you lift it out by pulling the filter element up
on the plastic strip it has on top.

> After the filter is removed I can use a brake bleeding pump to suck
> the fuel out of the housing?

Well, I think Howie opens the bleed cap and then uses the pump
_before_ he takes out the filter element.

> When I install the new filter how does the fuel come out the top of
> the cap piece?

New fuel from the tank is pumped into the filter-bowl by a so-called
lift pump. The lift pump runs while glowing and when the engine is
running. If it doesn't run, the engine will stall sooner or later
because it cannot get enough fuel.

There's a sensor checking for oil pressure wired to the lift pump. If
there's no oil pressure, it's supposed to turn off the pump. The
sensor can go bad because it is not designed to take all the current
the pump is drawing. Thus, some people are using a relay wired to the
sensor to drive the pump. If you do that, too, you can also make use
of the relay to run the lift pump at will, without glowing or starting
the engine. Howie describes rewiring the oil pressure switch on his
webpages: http://mysite.verizon.net/vze54tx9/id13.html.

When the lift pump is running, it fills up the filter bowl, and if you
open the bleed cap, the pump pumps the fuel out of it.

> how do I drain the water seperator and where is it?

It is located on the passenger side in front of the engine. It has a
small T-handle on it. When you turn the handle open while the engine
is running, the water the water seperator has seperated from the fuel
is supposed to run out through a short tube at the bottom of the
seperator.

Wait an hour or two until I'm finished with my coffee and I'll provide
some pictures :) I wanted to take some today anyway, so I just can
make some more.

This is the T-handle of the water separator:

... and here's the fuel filter ...

Turn off the large black plastic ring and use the white plastic lable that sits under the bleed cap to pull the filter element out. The lable even says that you shouldn't remove it because it's needed to pull the filter.

I lift mine out with the center bleed. I also purge my drain T very often and when cleaning the filter. I get about 5K per filter. Afer that they look like hell.

5k? What do you run through them?

Look at this one --- I hope to get it installed somewhen next year. It has a rude filter in one bowl and a fine filter (looking like a roll of toilet paper) in the other one.

That is a purty military unit! What's it off of?

I run veggie oils as often as I can accumulate it, and mix it with ethanol (up to 7.7% per volume) and thf (upto 1.1% per volume)
The ethanol and thf solvate petroleum resins in the tank and lines and it all clogs the filter. That's the price I pay for cleaning my system as I go.

Ja, it's a part for military trucks, I got it from some guy selling such things via ebay. The filter is new, no idea what truck it's supposed to be on. I think German military uses Mercedes and MAN trucks.

Hm, when you system is clean, you'll be able to go for longer intervals ... They're asking about EUR 30 for the replacement filter elements, thus having to change every 5k would get costly for me. I think I can get the military ones for much less because they're pretty standard ones, used on many trucks.

Thanks Olee, those are great.. I was 99% sure of how to do it, but I just want to confirm. My friend did his on his Cummins and he got air in the line and had tonnes of problems getting it out.. Just didn't want the same thing happening to me.

Dave

Purge the drain T then bleed the filter housing of air. The T comes off the bottom and collects water all the time, the bleed is on top and collects airbubbles.