85 300SD shifting hard and other issues

[helmmaster50]

Greetings everyone. I have been browsing the forums for the past few days for a solution for an issue I've been having with my 85 300SD, but figured maybe I should post about it and see what others may think. A bit of background on what's been happening:

My car has been sitting for the past 8 months while I was overseas. I left with it my parents who were suppose to take care of it, and completely neglected it. I finally had the car towed (at the time it would not turn over, I later told them after finding this out that the system needed to be primed because there was probably air in the line) a few weeks ago prior to me getting back to be worked on. Only thing I had done was the belts and brakes. Since having the car back the shifting has been atrocious. It will only shift at 4500RPM at 25MPH and 45MPH when the peddle is all the way at the floor. I've tried to ease into the shift, but the car just doesn't want to shift unless the peddles is all the way down I can only feel a downshift when I brake below at 25MPH. While driving between shift points, it drives anywhere between 3k to 4k. I tried to take the car over 75MPH and the engine reved to 5k and would not go any faster. I tried playing with my Bowden Cable and haven't had much luck with that (maybe I should lessen the tension more?). I'm wondering if the car is even hitting the right gears.

I've been reading around and found posts that have pointed towards the vacuum lines, which would make sense since the engine will not cut off when I turn it off (rather have this issue than it not turning on), and driver side door will not lock/unlock at the key hole. So, I went out and bought and bought a mity vac to test the lines. While turned on, I hooked it up to the line going from the vacuum amplifier (I think that's what it's called) on the driver side near the brake fluid, and got around 20(don't remember the unit of measurement). It was the only line I could get a reading off of. When I tried pumping the mity vac on the others, they would not hold pressure. I'm hoping it isn't the vaccum pump itself that could be causing this and maybe it's gunked up somewhere or a line fell off from sitting for so long.

Hopefully I gave enough info on my issue. If any more is needed please let me know. I'm afraid to drive the car around, but unfortunately I have no choice since I have no other way to get to work. Any advice and help is greatly appreciated. I want to try to fix this myself before I drop the money on a mechanic.