296 fuel filter and bowl under

Are you familiar with diesel engine fuel supply?

Without exception, there must be diesel and only diesel in the entire supply line. Neither the feed pump nor the injection pump can drive the air out.

Therefore, as air will enter when you open the system, you need to bleed the system by opening it at the filter base and pump manually or let gravity fill it until diesel without air bubbles comes out, close the bleed screw and continue to the far end (loosen the nut on the pipe on the injectors one by one) and pump the fuel pump lever until diesel comes out without air bubbles.

Since you've put in a new empty element, you need to pump quite a lot. You can alleviate this by pre-filling the filter before fitting it.

Bleeding it didn't work in this case - see comments above but diesel came out of the bleed screw after a short while, but the bowl remained empty.
 
This is the fuel hose I am using.

FITT REFITTEX FUELHose for industrial and agricultural use, suitable for the flow of hydrocarbons.Made with a special oil-resistant formulation, FITT Refittex Fuel is ideal for the flow of non-aromatic hydrocarbons such as oils and petroleum, for industrial applications and the refuelling of agricultural equipment.Structure: PVC hose with polymeric plasticizer and high tenacity polyester reinforcement.Temperature of use: -20°C / +60°C• High flexibility.• Good UV ray resistance.
 
How do you prefill a 296 filter and bottom bowl, I think it is not possible.
I've heard of people mounting them with wingnuts, then you can turn them upside down and fill through the drain.
Can also make changing the element easier.
 
Just don’t bother with Cav. As others say go for the Racor style and fit a squidgy bulb to help top up as needed. Much better job. Also when changing to this type make sure and install it somewhere easy to access.
 
For the last three posters - look at the photo in the first post. It is a Delphi 296 exactly the same, same top, same holes in the bottom, as the filter which came out. The point is/was, it was making an air lock. I've heard from several others - use a pump, suck it through - who've had the same airlock in such a system. The air was trapped in the glass bowl between the filter and the metal housing at the base. I'm hoping anybody reading this will find the answer about how to release this air which is trapped. In my case simple (I eventually got there) - undo the hose from the secondary filter to the lift pump at the lift pump end. Others have suggested a pump of some sort.
 
I must admit, I assumed the bleed screw was on the output side.

Main thing is to know that your tank is reasonably clean, so you won't wave to change a filter at sea.
 
My experience with fitting a hand pump - outboard type - was it worked the first year but the following year it leaked so dumped it, renewed the hose and it was fine.
 
One of the best things I did on Jissel was to bin the CAV filter and replace it with a pair of parallel spin-on filters from a car breaker, plus taps from ASAP, so I could switch to a clean filter in seconds. Filters then stopped being service replacement items and only got changed when they got too rusty, about every 10 years.
 
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