Crud! 85 300SD was running great overnight not good

[Beastie]

I have been really lucky the 85 300Sd has been running fine all winter with the help from various forum members. 3 days ago the weather was warm and I decided to glue the hood insulation pad back in place. I bought the 3M adhesive advised here and went about my business. I though I would be clever
and place 2 prepacked bags of mulch under the hood ( on top of the engine)
so I could let the hood down without latching and use that to keep the pad in place while it dried.
a. these bags were dry so they were not very heavy
b. I placed them carefully.
c. Damn I wish I knew what a great product this was. Spray allow 4 minutes press together and nothing else need be done. Live and learn
Anyway all appeared to have gone well. The next a.m. I went to start the car
and it started okay temp in the 30's a little rough but was not worried.
Then when I drove I noticed a huge loss of power just trying to get to 30 mph, also the 1-2 $ 3-4 shifts were a heck of a lot longer. Now the fuel level was low and I know I need to clean/replace the strainer but if I keep the tank
just above the reserve line all is well for now. I put 1/4of a tank in and drove it hoping that it was just the strainer clogging but that did not appear to help. It was getting late but I popped the hood and tried to see the filter which looked okay. I also looked at where the bags had been to see if I had snagged something with my stupid move of putting the bags there in the first place but saw nothing glaringly wrong. Tomorrow a.m. I will be looking under the hood give a closer inspection to all vacuum lines etc. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Until this point this car has run better than most of the other W126 I have driven and the tranny shifted flawlessly. I am going to look closely at the bowden cable adjstmnt etc but input would be gratefully accepted.
Thanks
Alan