Let me point out a couple of other things here.
1. I am not a diesel mechanic. I have been learning this on the fly, buying the service manuals, "operator manuals", and parts manuals, reading and applying common sense approach has done me well .......kinda.......so far.
2. My diesel experience so far has been on two tractors, a 2003 Kabota L3130 and a 1970 Ford 2000. The Ford is where I REALLY learned something (save for another thread "lipstick on a pig")
3. This incident we are talking about right now happened in August (fuel leak) at which time it happened to be two days before I was flying out to Nevada to visit me Ma! So as usual, "Mr. Murphy" raises his ugly head once again.

Well, let's shorten this up a bit, the fuel at my feet. Well that my friends is coming from the return line from the injectors. This section is made from rubber of course and it's cracked and deteriorated.

STOP WHAT YOUR DOING!
Diesels running dry is a bad thing, this is a bulldozer. Don't kill the battery or the starter! Well at least not yet.......aw fuck.....ok, so I did a tractor so far. These are both mechanical diesels. Both have have similar injector pumps but this one's got a wire going to a solenoid of some sorts, hiding in there. My service manual doesn't cover bleeding the system it says, "refer to Operators Manual" WTF? Now I gotta go find some damn book to tell me how to bleed this thing because.......well........it's different. Damn fuel lines are going everywhere, stern to bow, up and over, stbd to port, and forward and up. There's two fuel filters, a hand(knuckle fucker) pump on the fuel pump, plus a solenoid. Four injectors instead of three like the tractor and some how I'm going to have to prime this thing by WHAT procedure? Well kiddies, here's where the fun begins, feel free to chime in. I am currently in "internet time out", step son's here and wiped out all my shit on my provider so I'm down to two cans and a string, over.