Hello everyone. I just purchased a 1974 Mercury Comet. Beautiful car but it idles rough and out of sync. I noticed several vacuum hoses missing from the engine - and have posted pictures of where they are. I don't suppose any of you fine members could take a look and enlighten me on what they are and where they go? Thanks! Mark
The only vaccum hoses you need are one going from the intake to the modulator on the transmission and one from the carb to the vacuum advance on the distributor. Anything else you can plug/get rid of, including that EGR valve unless your state requires emissions inspection for cars this old. Hell, I even got rid of my vacuum advance by putting lighters springs in the distributor so the mechanical advance does the same job instead. The only vacuum line on our '72 daily driver is the one to the vacuum modulator on the transmission.
Yeah, look at this tangled mess of hoses on my '74 250 I6! Mine has some that are missing as well. I don't even know where the other end of this one is supposed to go (notice the charred connector). This is a spark advance delay valve that has a vacuum line to it, but not going on to the distributer like it's supposed to. This valve is SUPPOSED to delay the vaccuum advance "during heavy throttle use" for 9 seconds! Why the heck would I want that! Reading through the emission control system in my Chilton's gave me a headache yesterday. I am seriously considering pulling (and plugging -very important!) all the non-essential crap like was done on my truck many years ago.
