[ChevLoRay]

A vacuum guage can provide peace of mind. I'll give you the scenario.

Waaaaaay back when I was younger, like only 31 years old, I had a '65 Chevy pick up with a 283/stick. I'd had duals put on it, with glass packs and it sounded goooood. Arriving at work for the 4-12 shift, I backed into a parking spot. A co-worker backed his '75 LeMans in, next to me. He revved his up really good, and gave me an earful of braaack-a-wapppa-wapppa! So, I had to one-up him. I did. However, fate struck. As the revs came down, I noticed a violent vibration. I shut the engine off. I sat for a minute, thinking about the possibilities....dropped a valve, etc. So, thinking I had nothing to lose, I fired it up and watched my vacuum guage. Even though the vibration was bad, the vacuum needle was steady as the Rock of Gibralter. No valve problems!

Oh, there was a problem though. Seems the fan/alternator belt had a little too much play, and the belt rolled and twisted. As it did, there wasn't anything to absorb the increased tension. It would have been nice if the belt had just broken, but instead the result was a bent shaft on the water pump. I cut the belt, fired it up and the vibration was gone.

That night, I had to drive it home without the water pump. I only lived two miles from work, and I didn't waste any time getting there....I didn't speed. The weather was cool, thankfully.

Next day, I pulled the water pump off and decided it was a good idea to have the radiator cleaned and checked. After plunking down another $125 of my 1978 dollars, I had a new 4-row core (my truck had factory A/C in the dash). The rebuilt water pump leaked (the back plate wasn't tight from the rebuilder). So, I bought a new water pump and finished the job.

The vacuum guage? Well, at least I new I didn't have anything else to fix!