No the sender does not do any filtering at all. I just did this last week, the pipes on the sender were easy enough to get off as was the wiring. The problem is that the sender is attached to the tank with a large plastic ring, sort of like a pickling jar outer ring, and the fuel lines are only just above the ring, so as the ring come up its fouls the fuel pipes. I suppose there is just a chance that as you unscrew the fuel sender if you lifted it up at the same time it might be possible to undo it without removing the fuel lines. At least as you can get to the sender from above, you can try to unscrew it before you get going with the tank itself!