I was polkaing around the internet and found this article which I will summarize: The article focuses on contamination of diesel fuel in the fuel tank (in this case a 600 gal diesel fuel tank on his boat) and Cptn wils idea as to the cause/s and his solution. What I got from the article is that he believes that part of the fuel contamination problem is due to the fuel in the tank being unfiltered and not being circulated. In short the crud is allowed to build up in your tank until it starts to come out of the tank and plug up your fuel filter eventually shutting you down. At this point the feels you are stuck with a really difficult problem. Chemical solutions to kill the algae and result in more plugged filters due to the “dead bodies“ (and gives an example of the chemical solution causing problems with injectors on a Detroit Diesel engine). After physically cleaning out the tank the problem reoccurred several years later and he wanted a more permanent solution.

His idea was to install a separate fuel pump and separate fuel filter/water separator system to filter the fuel from the thank and return it back to the tank.
Why Mercedes owners might be interested: I was thinking mainly of people who use alternate fuels in their Mercedes and keep a bunch of those plastic (primary) fuel filters (and gloves) in the glove compartment because occasionally have to pull off of the road to change them.

It would not be too hard or expensive to hook up an electric fuel pump to a remote 2 micron fuel filter/water separator to filter the fuel in the tank and return it to the tank.
Here is the article: http://www.trawlersandtrawlering.com/howto/captnwil.html

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel