transmission control
 

1996 E330,
Is it possible for the transmission to limit the rpm of the motor? I have been chasing a problem for a while now and I just realized that in the morning it takes a few seconds for the transmission to drop into gear. could a blocked fluid flow not allow the enginge to reach full RPM

Could you rephrase that?

1996 E300 Diesel
 

Sorry for the confusion.
This car has been having an issue with RPM, specifically, it runs well until the RPMs get up to about 3K and then it get very lazy and maxes out at about 4K rpm at WOT. It will not shift at that point either, when I back off the throttle it will shift and runs good again unitl the RPM's get above 3K and the scenario plays out through all of the gears. The problem started intermittenly and has gotten progressively worse over the winter and now runs like this 95% of the time. At times, it will run normal and runs and shifts normally, it's like a switch gets turned on and then back off.
As I have been going through this I realized that the transmission is slow to go into gear in the morning. It has 200K miles on it and I am wondering now if the filter could be blocked or a solenoid sticking that can be causing this. I am thinking a solenoid would make more sense because when it does work right it is like a switch is turned on.
I have read about a spring in the valve body for the 1st to 2nd shift that breaks or gets weak and also about a " reluctor plate" that can be faulty but nothing that describes and issue similar to what i am seeing.

Thanks for any feedback

Today I realized that if I only push the throttle to about 3/4 of the way down it will rev up to about 4K shift and go smoothly up through the gears to 80mph. I did this a few times and then from a stop I pushed the pedal to WOT and again it revved to about 3K got lazy and maxedout at about 4200 rpm and would not shift until I left up on the throttle.
Previously I also had a fuel rattle noise that is now gone. I am stumped