I told my wife she jinxed me... the van sprung a leak from the front
radiator feed hose; I patched it, and that held until I could get a pair of
hoses in from Van Cafe and replace both radiator hoses. Then a piece of
plastic got caught in the impeller of the dishwasher drain pump. That's four
hours of my life I'll never get back. That's when my wife said "These things
come in threes; I wonder what's next?" I told her to hush, but apparently
the damage was done.

Today she was driving the van into town and it began to feel to her like it
was slowing down on its own (from about 60-ish), It picked back up, then
slowed down again. It began to vibrate badly so she started to pull over. It
made a loud "whap whap whap whap" sound (not metallic) and as she went to
apply the brake it felt to her like it locked up- it made a screech she
associated with a tire noise (not a chirp like a drive train). She smelled
something burning, which she took to be rubber but she's not sure. She
turned the engine off and called me. She thought she'd lost a tire or a belt
but that's not the case.

She wasn't far enough off the road so she started it back up and it wouldn't
move. She gave it a little gas and it caught or released and moved forward
enough to get farther onto the shoulder.

Getting an accurate description of something like this from my wife is
something like asking a blind man to describe a Pollock. It's just not the
way her brain is built.

When I arrived thirty minutes later I thought I caught a lingering burnt
rubber smell (in my experience burnt brakes have a very distinctive smell
that lingers; I checked all four rims and they were not hot, but one seemed
slightly warmer than the others). The belts and tires were fine. I had her
start it and it ran normally. She was able to move it forward and back under
power a bit as space allowed. I tried pushing it with the engine off in
neutral and something caught and it wouldn't move for a moment and then I
was able to "push it past it", so to speak. It moved a bit in reverse and
caught then released again.

I had it towed home. I'm about to go out and put it up in the air. I'm going
to check rear/e-brakes, (auto) tranny and differential, to start.

When I worked on the hoses I only lifted the front. I set the e-brake for
probably the first time in months last week and again a few days ago, but
detected no problems, and I've driven it more than 100 miles in the last few
days, I would think. I did a four-wheel brake job a little over two years
ago and haven't had any issues. I rebuilt the tranny in January 2010 and
haven't had any issues with it, but I didn't do anything to the diff at the
time.

I'm hoping it's the brakes, if it's one of those three, but I don't know if
I'm gonna be that lucky.

Thoughts?

--
Cya,
Robert

'87 & '86 Auto GLs