My 65 Barracuda has been running horrible since November. It had the lean surge and all the symptoms of a vacuum leak, but you never know. First I adjusted the valves and it needed that. New plugs, compression test, checked voltages, air gap on electronic distributor and ballast resistor. Did the spray test on the intake qasket. Rebuilt the carb and that was probably good cause the needle wasn't seating to good. Nothing brought back the purr. I had to turn the idle way up to keep it running. And of course it has rained most weekends since the problem started culminating in a major flood here a couple weeks ago. Hard to get excited about working on a car when you are wading! And the car is my wife's daily driver so it was at work during the day. Not much chance to work on it and about out of ideas.

Finally had an inspiration last weekend. I started it and took a pair of pliers and pinched the vacuum hose to the brake booster. Eureka! A semblance of the old purr returned! I had to order the booster and got it on a couple days ago. The wife says it is great! I don't know why I didn't think of the booster about two months ago. It was still working and wasn't making any noise so I just never gave it a thought.

I've done those same kinds of things many times. You basically restore everything else trying to track down a problem, by the time the "DOH " thing becomes apparent, you've replaced just about everything else, so you should be in ship-shape for quite awhile...

Don't ask about the a/c system on my '88 truck (which ties into the computer)... I'm still bearing emotional scars from that one. Word to the wise: On massively computer controlled junk, taking apart every single underhood electrical connection and cleaning with CRC and greasing should be the first thing you do when you develop strange and malicious gremlins.
D/W

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If it ain't broke, fix it!

See/raise. I added factory A/C to my '89 truck. It was not originally so equipped.