What sort of procedure are you using to bleed the fuel filter?

Oh and welcome to the group!

 

Melted terminal means ya cranked for too long, the batteries were low, or cables were in bad shape already.
This motor cannot be cranked for longer than 30 seconds at a time unless it is VERY cold outside.
When you first discovered the fuel leaking, before trying to crank at all, ya need to 100% bleed the entire fuel feed system.
Gotta make sure zero air is present bleeding out top of filter.
I further like to then crack the feed line on top of the ip, and make sure zero bubbles are present there.
Then try craning it up.

If you have cranked on it before 100% clearing all air out, well next you will have to get all thw air out, then you need to loosen as many injectors as possible and crank the ingested air out of the IP and injector lines.

It is a slow process.
Usually the drivers side lines start weeping fuel, so i tighten them as they do.

I further like to replace the rubber lines with clear reinforced pvc lines from home depot, and route them to the top of the manifold. This lets me see if any air is comming in from the tank or before the lift pump.

 

Most important is to bleed the air out of the fuel system after changing anything along the fuel lines. I prefer to energize the LP (that is assuming LP is running) using the relay and run it as long as the bleed process.

There is a bleed valve on top of the filter.