Changed the fuel filter on my 5.0 Mountaineer

[yellow coupe]

I have changed a lot of fuel filters and I have never seen anything like this. I bleed the pressure off the fuel system, unclipped the lines and when I took the rear line off (the infeed line toward the tank) the fuel coming out of the filter (not out of the tank) was real dark (with pressure still on it). It almost looked like oil. The Mountaineer had 210,000 on it when I got it and it has 214,00 on it now. It had a Motorcraft filter on it and my guess is that it has never been changed. I have just never seen fuel look like that coming out after unhooking the lines.
Has anyone else ever ran into this?

 

[ranger7ltr]

Sure have...

Did your fuel look like this? Mine came from this...And, no, bad gas did not cause this...After changing lots of fuel filters, having the tank boiled out at a radiator shop, and lining it with a pour-in liner product, I finally changed the internally rusty gas tank...

 

[yellow coupe]

No, mine did not look like that. It had a charcoal color to it. Any ideas??

 

[bluestream1]

May have had some bad gas put in at some point. That all ends up in the filter

 

[Kriegen]

If you're right and it had never been changed, then the stuff coming out the inlet side is going to include a lot of the crap that the filter has filtered out over 214K miles and is going to look pretty nasty. I had the same experience with mine at 188K. Cut it apart and the inside was solid black.