EGR wierdness - is this even possible?

[Lhorn]

I'm chasing vacuum leaks on my 86 and noticed that the EGR solenoid doesn't hold vacuum. Hooking the Mityvac up the the larger of the two hoses coming from the EGR solenoid, it doesn't hold vacuum at all (car off). I decided I might have a bad EGR solenoid so I decided to "T" a vacumm gauge into the short, smaller vacuum hose that goes from the EGR solenoid to the EGR valve (EGR valve seems to work - it holds vacuum and car stumbles when depressed) to see if the solenoid is applying vacuum to the EGR valve appropriately.

I went for a drive and under normal acceleration, I read zero vacuum. Bad solenoid right?
On the way back I accelerated a little faster and my vacuum gauge started to read several # of boost (this gauge also registers boost to test mechanical fuel pumps).

Does that make any sense? I think my solenoid is bad because it doesn't hold vacuum and my EGR never sees any vacuum. I though this could be because the solenoid is stuck open and the vacuum is bleeding off. If so, then how could it register boost?

This car runs pretty good under normal driving, but I'm getting KR at about 10# boost (which is why I'm chasing down vacuum leaks). It passed Ca. smog test about 6 months ago. I'm getting no error codes.

Thanks for any thought about this problem.

 

[Lhorn]

I had at least one thought on this. I'm guessing the EGR is never supposed to see boost. Does that mean my check valve is bad? I wouldn't have thought so since I put the Mity vac on it and it holds vacuum only one direction and I think I put it on right (black side with "vac" written on it toward the engine, white side toward the EGR solenoid).