Hello Mister Byrnzoil and thanks to PEH and Brian C. for your comments.

In response to Mr. B.: I am not that experienced working on these cars yet, but your experience sounds similar to mine. Fuel gushed out of my line after the strainer, too. I stopped it back up because I have so much in the tank and I didn't want it all out at that point! I siphoned a bunch (7 gallons or so) of the diesel out through the fuel tank. That stuff looks real clean. The stuff that gushed out of the fuel line that I caught in my basin was black. I think I can re-use the stuff that I siphoned out (I'll treat it w/ biobor to keep it clean).

With less fuel in the tank, maybe it will gush out less quickly, so I'll probably siphon some more out and then attempt to remove the strainer and catch what comes out at that point. My intention is to re-use this strainer (from what I read on this conference, cleaning it and then reusing it is fine). I am less tempted to re-use the prefilter, but I cannot comment on that. The prefilters are cheap, though, and easy to get....