Edelbrock vacuum leak question

[gbarber]

I have an Edelbrock 1405 on my '66 289. I have been chasing a vacuum leak for the past couple of weeks with little success. Actually, the leak has probably been there since I rebuilt the engine in '04, but it didn't bother me until someone recently pointed out to me that the car didn't idle well do to a leak.
After spraying starting fluid around the base of the carb, I found the leak was on the passenger side, I thought at the gasket. Last year I installed one of the heat insulator .320" thick gaskets to help with restarting the engine when it was hot. I thought maybe I over-torqued it when I installed it causing the leak. I replaced that gasket with a normal carb gasket. The leak was still in the same area. I pulled that gasket and installed another thicker heat insulating gasket. The leak is still there.
Is it possible for the Edelbrock carbs to have a vacuum leak around any of the choke linkages on the passenger side of the carburator? Also, how much torque do you put on carburator mounting nuts?

 

[jbuening]

Yes the throttle shaft leak and i've been hunting down a vacuum leak for over a year and assumed it was something inside the motor. I recently sprayed down the throttle linkage on the drivers side and sure enough the idle smoothed out. Its more likely on the drivers side considering the return spring holds tension on that shaft, but could be all of them. In fact, both shafts on both sides of my 1405 have a dark brown residue from the gas slowly leaking through the shafts.