vacuum hose leak

[timd]

So the wife calls me at work and says her car is running real rough and the "Check Engine" light was on. I get home and crank it up and I immediately hear a vacuum leak. I pop the hood on her '98 Chevy Malibu with a 3.1L engine and I first notice the PCV valve is slightly out of its rubber grommet in the valve cover. I push that down and the leak is still audible but it changes a little. I wiggle the PCV valve and the vacuum leak changes again. I follow the rigid vacuum line toward the plenum and right under the mounting bracket for the throttle cables, I see a T in the vacuum line. The hole in the air intake is about 1/2" and the end of the T that goes down into the air intake is about 1/4". There obviously should be a rubber grommet in the air intake to mate these together, right? Somebody please tell me that's the case.
I found an old spark plug wire and cut the rubber cap off the end and pushed it on the T and then pushed it down into the air intake.
Cranked up the engine and it ran smooth. The leak was gone as well as the "Check Engine" light. My question is, what happened to the original rubber grommet??????
Anybody seen this before?

The cruise control had been intermittent prior to this, also

[igkyoa]

yeah there should be a grommet, cause there should be a leak in the vacume pressure, aparently it fell out but your fix should work for the short run