Ah, that's inches of vacuum. Your pump is probably OK.

You need the check valve so that your shutoff will work and the brake booster doesn't loose vac as soon as the engine is off, leave it in there. The only thing you don't need with a manny tranny is the shift control signal to the vacuum modulator.

The air recirc is mostly to keep the turbo up to speed on highway cruise to eliminate turbo lag and to dump boost under some circumstances to prevent overheating the trap oxidizer that you don't have (It also opens when you take your foot off the accelerator, same reason -- turbo spins but doesn't pressurize the manifold). It will increase milage a bit on the highway, but won't do a thing for manual shifts, you have to use your foot for that, as it isn't connected to the control linkage. Unless you have the computer system, it isn't gonna do anything anyway.

Peter

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1972 220D ?? miles
1988 300E 200,012
1987 300D Turbo killed 9/25/07, 275,000 miles
1985 Volvo 740 GLE Turobodiesel 218,000
1972 280 SE 4.5 165, 000 - It runs!