I was driving about 35 miles an hour and my van made a small backfire sort of noise in the engine compartment and then died. I continued to roll and it diesel for about 30 seconds and then stopped. It turns over very strong. It has the little orange engine light on when I turn the key on it stays on for a minute or two. Anybody have any ideas.

 

First step is to scan it for the code or codes that have turned on that CEL. That aside, based on your description, I would say either the fuel pump died, the timing chain jumped, the distributor cap cracked, or the crank sensor is failing.