Finally found my vacuum leak

[Jess]

I've made a couple posts about this but basically, HVAC was switching to defrost while climbing hills/high rpm. I've looked over lines a few times, I was almost certain the problem was behind the dash. I relocated the vacuum reservoir to below the coolant bottle and then I gave up and decided to wage an epic battle replacing my LCA/UCA bushings. After may curse words (and days) I got that done and when I went to test drive my truck, the vacuum leak was even worse.

 

Long story short, I went over everything again and found huge holes in the line that runs from the reservoir to the firewall, I think it fell apart when I was bending the lines to fit it under the coolant bottle and that was why it got worse. I cut that line back to where it was still flexible and in the process found another huge hole on the other line that runs from the firewall to the HCV (I think?). That line is very brittle looking and too short to cut so I ended up carefully pulling the plug off and sliding a piece of shrink tube down and that did the trick. 

 

I guess the lesson learned here is to be more attentive when inspecting things. Or just replace all the vacuum lines before the crumble into pieces...

 

Speaking of that, does anyone know if the lines can be removed from the grommet on the firewall? Or is that thing just a sleeve that'll require pulling the dash away? This thing is toast and my little shrink tube fix won't last forever.