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Caterpillar does not recommend this at all.

But, if you take your Cat to a Caterpillar Service Center that is exactly what they do. Been there, seen that. They are careful to pour fuel into the outer holes.

I have a 3126. The primer handle looks like the one in the above picture, just to the right of the filter.

Fill the outside of the filter and plug or do not pour fuel in the convinient hole in the middle and you filter it.

You guys have a lot more patience and a better aim than me. Cat dealers aren't suppose to because they are the ones that will have to tell you if you fail one injector it will warranty is you fail a couple then its a maintenace problem. If you change the water seperator/filter first and start the engine and let it run for awhile at about 1000-1200 rpm. Then change the secondary fuel and do the same thing, you shouldn't have a problem starting.

I just had my filter relocated and added a priming pump: Relocated Fuel Filter & Added Priming Pump

Regarding filling your fuel filters, I purchased my 2001 MH with a 330 CAT engine 7 months ago. I recently called a CAT technician about another problem and told him I was new to diesel engines and that I do my own maintenance. He asked me if I had changed my fuel filters and I said I hadn't. He highly suggested changing both filters and told me to fill the new filters with diesel fuel before replacing them. This advice was from a technician at the Caterpillar company. I don't recall his name, but that's exactly what I'm going to do.

Need to look at the Caterpillar OMM SEBU7766 ( Caterpillar publication number).Page 205 do not fill the fuel filter before installing. The fuel would not be filtered and could be contaminated. It also goes through and tells how to prime the filter by cranking and bleeding the fuel system. I've seen a lot of injectors get replaced because of prefilling filters.

Been through 4 filter changes in my Cat C7 during the last two years with no problems encountered by pre filling the new filter.

I do take extra care in pre filling by plugging the center hole with an appropriate sized bolt (clean, of course) while pouring the fresh diesel fuel into the outer holes. The 30 micron water separator filter first; then starting the engine and letting it run @ a fast idle for a couple of minutes. I then change the 2 micron filter using the same procedure. Never a problem, works for me..

I wouldn't be suprised if Cat's thinking was the guy in the shop isn't going to take the time to fiddle with carefully filling the filter and most truck type installations are easier to get to and bleed the system. Just my thought.