Noticed my truck having a long crank again and found the filter once again black as black. This one had maybe 2000 miles on it before clogging up this way. I'm on my 3-4th filter in 8-10K miles from this. First thought I had crap in the tank from letting my truck sit a year or so without running, but after every other tank of diesel kleen and about 10 months later I thought it would have been cleaned out by now.

I fuel up between 3 major stations near me, so I'm wondering if one of them has some nasty tanks. Or could something black upstream of the filter be slowly disintegrating on me?

 

Mine was the pick up housing. It completely disintegrated. Had to take the tank down. I was surprised to see it gone. I had to add a fuel line to it. Left it about 3/4 inch from the bottom. There two small filters on the pick up and return lines. I had to change the sending unit. It stopped working. The float came off. Local parts want $450 for the complete tank unit. I found one at a parts pull it yard. I have been using an in line filter before the fuei pump, on the frame. Seems to help the main filter last a little longer.
My filter was black as black till I cleaned the tank and took the loose parts out. By looking at the loose parts, I would never guessed there was a housing p/u in the tank.
It looked like black diesel in the bottom. Been running good since fix.

 

does you filter stink? black stinky fuel filters is a good indication of microbial growth. Get a fuel additive that is meant to kill those little bastards. I would find out what fuel your getting. it tends to happen when theres water in the fuel.

 

No stink. Just the black from the plastic housing. Nothing growing in the tank.

 

Mine doesn't stink other than the sweet smell of diesel fuel. Guess I'm going to drop the tank and see what I got in there.

 

Asked a mechanic and they said it's likely an injector o-ring going bad bleeding oil back into the fuel. Sound plausible?