WELL.
it's been a long couple of weeks, but I'm finally home from my Texas-to-Oregon road trip. i'll be posting another question here in a minute on the comedy of errors and crappy luck plagueing my trip, but, first things first:

sorry i haven't posted an earlier resolution reply, but i've been on the road and internet restricted.

as far as THIS post and its resoulution is concerned:

it baffled me because of the ORDER in which all this bad running/lack of power stuff all happened, but, long story short: both fuel filters were clogged AND the primer pump was bad AND the fuel gauge was faulty.
thanks so much for all your help on this one. got me from Houston to northern New Mexico, before experiencing any other trouble

__________________
-lee
'83 300CDT (286k)

former proud owner of:
'85 mercedes euro 300TD
'80 mercedes 300TD
'77 mercedes 280e
'80 mercedes euro 250
'82 mercedes euro 250