1994 Renault Trafic broke down

[Liamelliott]

Hi, would like a rough diagnosis if possible. Just started what was supposed to be a 600 mile journey in my camper, 3 miles in and the car was making weird whining a clunky sounds, then it felt as though something went, so I turned off the road and as I turned it felt like the brakes were pushed really hard. I got out checked the engine, nothing to see really, weirdly the windscreen washer bottle was leaking water? I managed to drive it further up the road to leave it until later. The van drives but there’s lot of noises and quite bad vibrations, seems to go into all the gears as normal, I drove it about 100 yards before it felt as though it stalled and slammed the brakes on again, then I smelt a slight clutchy kind of smell. As you can tell I’m no expert, would just like a guess at what part of the system went wrong so I can do some more research. Thanks a lot for any help.

[Liamelliott]

Hi, thanks for your reply, I’ll make sure to apologies to my van when I go recover it later lol. It’s a petrol, so let it idle and then take out each spark plug and see if the engines idle changes? And if it’s not spark plug I have a much bigger problem I presume. I’ve done some research on what you said and the symptoms do sound very similar, unfortunately don’t have any mechanic friends here in Portugal.

[Liamelliott]

Have some more symptoms.. just went to go and tow it home and had to bail after about 20 metres as the brakes don’t feel like they’re working much, also a lot of grinding noise while rolling without the engine on. tried to reverse it back to a safe spot and the rear wheels keep locking up..

[Liamelliott]

The washer fluid turned out to just have a hairline crack in, had recently topped it up so the added weight on 30 year old plastic had caused a bit of strain on it. When I’m neutral the engine sounds fine, clutch is fine also. I had it recovered and just having it dragged onto the truck the rear wheels were seizing up so I’m wondering if it’s the rear drums, I think they are original and the brakes have always been bad since owning it, the brakes felt non existent when I attempted to tow it home. Appreciate everyone’s replies, super helpful 👍🏽

[Liamelliott]

Not sure yet, it’s just a side project so not in a rush to fix it, will post when the time comes to sort out the old bag of st