Well, back to my car.

I decided to check the vent hose, so I ran compressed air through it from under the car (I pulled the connector off where the rubber hose meets the metal hose). Although I placed a bucket at the end of the vent hose, I don't think any junk blew into the bucket and I heard a clear line.

I then went the opposite direction (into the tank) and closed the fuel cap, so that the air could only come back through the feed and return line sockets. I felt air coming out of them, so my venting seems OK. I then put all the pieces back (I did cut my rubber fuel line by 2" or so because I noticed it kinking some before it connected to the long metal one).

Once all the lines were back in place I poured the 12 or so gallons of diesel back into the tank. I used a filter mesh that came with the funnel I bought to try to remove any suspended material. Since the fuel's been sitting in the jugs for a couple of weeks I noticed some bits of slime and a few black specks near the bottom of most of the containers, which I avoided as much as I could. I also just treated several of the containers of diesel with biobor, so it should be well mixed into my tank.

Happily the car started up after I primed the filters. A 4 mile test drive didn't show any loss of power, but, as we all know, time is the ultimate judge.

One more question on this topic - I wanted to remove the hat tray and the first aid box in the hat tray so as to access the fuel tank from above. How do we remove that tray? The only 2 screws I saw seem to only hold the latch for each of the two trays. I don't want to break my panelling to get in there. Thanks!