carburetor and bad idling

Recently I took my 1984 lesabre to the mechanic because the engine was idling horribly, my brakes gave out, and I failed the emissions test by a significant amount. He said that these three systems are one vacuum, and that the vacuum was being broken because two of the four carburetor barrels kept getting stuck. It ran good for about a week after, but then the same problems started happening. Does anyone know if there is anything else that ight cause this, or if not, how to fix the problem with out having to replace the carburetor?

Is it the same issue with the secondarys sticking? this would only happen if you kicked open the 4bbl and the secondarys failed to close.