Hi all,
When I bought my 76 Custom Cruiser 2 years ago everything worked perfectly, but now:
-cruise control went out first, maybe I touched the vacuum thingy at the brake pedal when I removed the lower dash to pull new wire for the speakers/Retrosound radio
-ventilation control lever does not work, air vents are stuck in lower position and dash vents do not come back when moving the lever from heat to vent
-car stalled for the first time this week when the electric choke is still on, when car is running at normal temp everything works fine but the car is really shaking at idle and I noticed slightly higher mpg
So all 3 can't be a coincidence and can only be vacuum, but I am not a mechanic but is there something that I can check under the hood first before removing the dash for the cruise/vent problem?

 

At least the first two are vacuum related, and if you have a vacuum leak, that could cause the third one.

 

During lunch break, together with a colleague we checked the entire motor compartment and pulled all hoses. One spark plug wire was not entirely pushed in on a plug and one 9/32 vacuum hose to the intake manifold, behind the carburator was a bit loose. That fixed the idle problem but not the cruise/vent issue so we checked again. Almost invisible to spot, we found one tiny vacuum hose behind the vacuum ball hanging loose, plugged it in et voila! Incredible that 2 loose hoses have so much impact but glad to see it solved.

 

No, it isn't incredible. The hose to the vac ball supplies ALL the vacuum to the HVAC system. Disconnect it and nothing works. That's no different than pulling the plug of your desk lamp out of the wall outlet and saying it's incredible that one little cord would have so much impact.