Exhaust leak ?

Montygirly said:

and that's why I smell gas bad when I start it.

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. . . and an exhaust leak wouldn't cause you to smell fuel at start-up. You probably already know this, but that's something you really need to figure out--that could turn into a fire.

Montygirly said:

When it rains it pours! My a/c still on defrost my brake fluid disappearing

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. . . and as far as the disappearing brake fluid, I guess the first check would be for puddles under your truck & if you find any, then trace the puddle to the applicable brake line and replace it. Here in the rust belt, I have wound up changing a bunch of brake lines on my old beaters.

But what I was really thinking about was a thread on one of these forums where the OP was losing brake fluid & couldn't find a leak and I think it turned out that fluid was gtting drawn into the brake booster (via the vacuum in the booster & a bad seal either in the booster or the master cylinder, I canot remember). That was a while ago I read that thread, and I have no personal experience with that happening to me, but that is what came to mind when I read about your disappearing brake fluid.

. . . anyway, as to that last post I made re your disappearing brake fluid--I got into the book a little bit to familiarize myself a bit, and "the booster unit consists of a single housing divided into two by a tandem diaphragm. . . . The booster pushrod, which connects the booster to the brake pedal & master cylinder, is attached to the center of the diaphragm."

ON EDIT: sorry, I was looking at the book some more and I think I got some of that wrong, hence I edited part of it out. Extending into the booster, from the master cylinder, is "the primary and secondary pistons." I am thinking that there must be seal(s) on the piston (much like a piston ring) that keep the fluid in the master cylinder and out of the booster. So I think what I must have read was that one of those seals must be where the leak occurs that lets brake fluid out of the master cylinder & into the booster where it gets sucked through by vacuum.