OK, Thanks, to all of you.

Brian, I did replace the secondary fuel filters a few weeks back with some improvement in startup and initial performance, but then it still lost power after a couple of miles.... That's when I decided to go after the strainer. It likely did sit for awhile before I purchased it (and even after I bought it I never drove it a whole lot).

In any case, I will put my car back together and see how it runs. I will then look at the issue of the venting and the pressure in the fuel lines. Venting sounds like the easiest to look at first....

Another aside is that the mileage has never been that great, I noticed on this site some folks reporting 30+, or at least 28 +. Mine has been more like 20-22 at best, so something's up (maybe its partly the diesel out here in CA).