Fuel Delivery Issue

[T Lanier]

Hey Bimmer lovers I'm new here so of course this will be my first post. So I bought a 1995 e34 5 speed a few weeks ago.
1. Bad starter (replaced it)
2. wrecked steering wheel collar/tumbler - in progress to fix
3. Hole in rusted gas tank and bad fuel pump
*Ok so back story. My first BMW was a 1993 e34 automatic trans. However I wanted one in better shape with a manual trans. so I purchased the aforementioned car. I took the entire tank assembly from the first car (must better shape and working fuel pump) and put it into the 1995 car. I reattached the fuel lines but not the expansion tank because i wanted to test for fuel delivery at the rail first but it was bone dry. I then went to the trunk to pull the sender fuel line off to be sure the system was pumping and under pressure and was met with a blast of gasoline spray. Needless to say there was a serious pressure build up somewhere. I figured it must be a clogged fuel filter. I pulled the gas line off the filter on the engine side and fuel ran out of the filter for a while. I'm thinking well it can't be clogged. So my question is do I have a blockage somewhere or is the expansion tank VERY important and i'm just being a nut?

[shogun]

Did you connect the fuel return line from engine bay to fuel tank?

[Junglenut]

Unbolt fuel pump to determine what is fuel feed and what is fuel return on the metal pump cover. Make sure the hose from fuel filter to gas tank is the feed hose and fuel return from engine bay goes to fuel return on fuel tank.

Fuel feed is the metal tube that goes directly to pump motor in the fuel tank. The other metal tube is fuel return.