If you had good fuel pressure before changing the filters, it would be fair to assume your transfer pump would not go bad so quickly, so yes, you went a step too far pulling that off.

I just went through all this as you know with my D4 7J, following advice from Edb I decided not to remove the drive gear because that can add a whole new level of complexity. Look at my thread on "D4 7J No fuel pressure"

I made a new gasket and cut it in such a way it would just slip over the seal housing, it took a little while to gently mold it into place, but with a coating of Aviation Gasket Sealer it seems to be holding up well, I used a small smear of Supaglue on the zigzag seam just to help it stay closed.

Check the plate the filters attach to. I have seen one crack was kind of hard to see. But allowed enough air in it ran very poorly.

I had a good look at the pump plate with a straight edge. For sure I can see where the wear was if I hold it to a light but i couldn't get a .0015" feeler in there and i thought it looked and felt good so i just cleaned things up and back together. Made a gasket with a puzzle piece joint and re installed. I gave the relief spring a slight stretch and put that back together.
Now when cranking it went straight through the "normal" range and it now reads in the high area. Perhaps a gave the relief too much of a stretch? I also found out through the operator's manual that removing air from the pump requires opening valves behind the delivery valves and while cranking, the fuel position must be OFF- not full fuel as I am used to. I wondered if that was a misprint but it didnt purge when the fuel position was at full. I think I will try to see if I can compress the relief spring to bring it back to normal range and get the leaks fixed up. Other than that I'm happy and back in business.

Couple more pics.

One more for good measure.

Hi MM,
I think your transfer pump cover plate has too much wear and so needs to be faced down a bit--finish off with fine wet/dry with some oil and kero or such for lube to polish the surface finish a bit before re-fitting so it will seal better.
Rub the cover down on a flat surface like a sheet of glass in a figure of eight pattern--do 6-10 rubs and then rotate the plate 90 deg. and repeat to keep surface flat and remove metal evenly all over until you are satisfied with the finish.
Cheers,
Eddie B.

MM, I did the same thing about 4 or 5 years ago and rebuilt the transfer pump when I really didn't need to. Eddie has a good idea on how to lap it flat and wish I would have thought of that. I took mine to a tool shop and they ground the cover flat for $65 and had to take off .003" to get it to all clean up. I also had my son make me the tamping tool but I took a short cut and didn't have him harden it and I ruined the tamping tool installing the seals. At least I have a good transfer pump!!! Best of luck!

I would think the transfer pump would be OK if it was before. If you are seeing bubbles from the leaking gasket, then the pump is pumping. The fuel in the filter housing should still gravity feed the pump and lines if you prefilled it because the fuel exits out of the bottom of the chamber. Try keeping the bleed valve open at top of filter housing while cranking until no more air comes out. Then open the bleed valves behind the injector pumps with the special socket to pump out the air from each one. Then crack the lines at the top and see that fuel is pulsing out of the fittings while cranking. Let them pulse long enough to make sure the air is out. If you don't get any fuel in filter housing, verify you get fuel at the inlet to the transfer pump by cracking that line. If not, the problem should be easy to find.

pressurize the fuel tank to around 5psi and that will push all of the air out of the system thru the bleed points

Just to be clear, the tractor is running well again. The only thing is that it actually goes past the "normal" range and reads high. EdB- it lapping the wear off the plate still a good thing to do? I wondered if I had too high of pressure due to the stretch I put on the relief spring. I didn't think it was much but perhaps I affected it more than I had thought. I had thought I might expose other leaks if I ran it long enough with too high of pressure? I will definately have a closer look at that aluminum plate and the cover to see if I can distinguish where the leak is if it is still there. Thanks for the pointers everyone. Really appreciate it.