I put the dormant cap on and had problems with the fuel leaking . I had the gasket on correctly but the cap would not seal tight enough so I took it off and replaced with a ford cap and that solved the problem.
I finally got the old filter and cap off.The cap was a deep one with a filter screen. I am thinking of switching to the motorcraft FD-4596 fuel filter along with the Dorman 904-208 cap.Do you think this is a good choice and whitch combination did you use?
There's a black plastic resonator box in that area that makes it difficult to work in that area. I removed mine back when I rebuilt the turbocharger a few years back so mine came out in one piece. One ambulance mechanic recommends smashing the thing to get it out then plugging the hole in the air filter duct. I used some PVC pipe with a cap glued on to plug mine. I don't remember how it was fastened in but you might be able to push it out of the way enough to get the cap off. With that little room it's unlikely that your filter has the cap attached.
Parts stores sell the filter by itself and also a filter with the cap attached. I'm guessing yours has the filter with the cap attached which is a real bear to squeeze into the narrow space over the fuel bowl in a van body.
If the filter comes up with the cap you'll probably need to squash the old filter to get it out of there then replace it with a separate cap and filter. That will make filter changes way easier in the future.
You'll get a new o-ring and triangular lid seal with the new filter. The o-ring goes on the bottom skirt of the filter and the triangular seal goes on the cap, narrow side toward the top of the cap.