I took on the haldex service today. I watched a few videos but I was not sure which approach I would take until I started. I have some tips for those who deicide to attempt this on the freelander 2.

1. Clean around the haldex first. My car has been on the beach and there was quite a bit of sand and dirt under there (even though I do clean it after the beach) and that is unhelpful to your eyes, mouth and demeanour when you're on your back under the car. Its also important because if you decide to take the entire unit out it is much harder to handle it afterwards without geting muck over all sorts of parts that should stay clean. You'll see specks of sand everywhere in my pictures even though I was quite careful and all of this had to be throughly cleaned.

2. In my opinion the only way to do this if you want to see the condition of the pump is to remove the entire unit from the vehicle. This is because the drive shaft flange (which blocks the pump) is held in one by one nut. People say it is easiest to remove with a impact gun. I have a very small impact gun and I couldn't get it in there to remove the flange. I also couldn't think of any other tool that could remove the nut because the nut and flange spin together. My car had done 203000km without a change so I wanted to see the condition of the filter. I need not have worried it was completely clean (see pics). Perhaps the previous owner did it??? Still I think most here will want to check the pump as it as it is a failure point and many youtube videos show it completely clogged.

3. If you take this advice it is pretty easy (though time consuming) to remove the whole unit. Although most of the Volvo Gen 3 and 4 Haldex videos say the exhaust needs to be removed or loosened, this is not the case with the Freelander 2. Step 1 is to remove the 6 torx bolts from the flange. This should be a very quick process but I was fearful of breaking a bolt. They appeared to get harder to turn the further they came out. I spent a lot of time tightening then loosening to try to avoid breaking anything. Another tip: if they seem tight, don't forget you can spray WD40 on both end of the bolt as they goes the whole way through the flange. At least 3 bolts can be reached at a time. I had the car on 4 axel stands and just placed it in neutral to spin the drive/prop shaft to get at the other three.

4. Once the 6 bolts are out you will see that the prop/drive shaft will move back toward the front of the car but unfortunately not sufficiently far to clear the flange completely. As you look back along the shaft towards the front of the car you will see the the shaft is supported in two places. If you remove the 6 screws at the support nearest to the flange the shaft drops down just enough to give it the clearance necessary (no difficult screws here). Now just push the shaft towards the engine (as though you are trying to spear the engine with it) it will move just enough to come out of the flange. Because the exhaust has not been removed the prop shaft can just be rested on the drivers side of the exhaust. Remember to mark the position of the prop to the flange BEFORE it comes out.

5. There is now plenty of room and the haldex unit is now just sitting there supported by 4 mounting bolts. So the top drivers side is the only one that is difficult to get to, but really although it is tedious its nothing compared to that flange nut! Which you can just leave until the unit comes off. For me this was the easiest part of the job but my tip is to get the hard to reach bolt out first.

6.Once these 4 bolts are out, the while haldex unit slides towards the front of the car and there is more than enough room for the unit to drop down and be removed.

7. The flange nut still needs to be removed with an impact gun but at least now you can do this on the bench (or your BBQ table . There is plenty of information from here as to how to service the unit (which takes just a few minutes) and putting it back is just the reverse of what I have outlined.

For me the surprise was that taking the whole unit out was just 4 bolts that were not too difficult. Honestly I can't see why you would service it on the car. I guess the other surprise is how clean it was after 203000km there is no way it was anywhere near failing and the pump gauze was clean. Similar to the timing belt (my wife picked the old one as being the new one!

Anyway all in all a worthwhile job and much more enjoyable than the timing belt or the rear shocks.

An update on the haldex. When I serviced the haldex I changed all the gaskets but a few days after doing this I noticed I could still see oil leaking from somewhere around the drive shaft flange.
Behind the flange is a seal that rarely fails, but of course mine had.
So yesterday I took the haldex off again. This time because I knew what I was doing, it only took 30 minutes.
When the flange is removed the seal stays on the haldex not the flange. To remove it I had to drill into it in 4 places and use the holes to attach a cheap seal pry that I bought on ebay. Gently prying it out from the four points.
Putting the new seal in is much easier. slide it onto the flange (dont try to push it into place on the haldex) and then tap the flange into place on the haldex using a hammer and wood. The flange is the best seal press tool you'll ever use
It took 9 weeks for the seal to arrive from the Rimmer Bros in the UK and less than 2 hour to fit it and refill.
Driving around and she is now as dry as a bone and working well.

This pic shows how to remove the seal from the haldex (it is in there tight). Carefully drill a hole. You'll be able to see from examining your new seal how to drill this into the metal part of the seal without damaging anything. Then you are ready to use pry to pull it out.





This photo shows the flange without the new seal.





And this photo shows how to place the seal on the flange before using it to press it into the haldex.




The final picture shows the new seal pressed into place on the haldex after using the flange as a seal presser.






Good luck if you try this. It is not a hard job. I have never changed a seal of any sort before.

Hello and thank you for this great instruction, worked like a charm (although, the propshaft didn't want to separate from flange, so I had to punch it through the special holes on the other side of flange.

Unfortunately, haldex service (filter, oil, screen on the pump) didn't get my haldex gen 3 working. Now I am trying to figure out the real issue. Code scanner didn't show any trouble codes. Tested the resistance of pump, which was 7,5 Ohm. When attached to the car, I can hear pump making a high pitched noise, therefore I assume it is working. Before changing the module, which is quite an expensive one, could it be that pump (although making high pitched noise) is not working in the end? I see conflicting advices on web, where some say that good pump should read 2-4 ohms, some say 4-7, some 5-9. Is there anyone that can tell me what the ohm reading on gen 3 pump should be?

Here is my thread on pump motor resistance.

https://www.freel2.com/forum/topic36271.html

I didn't get any further than you have with resistance values, but can only say, following the advice I got from members here, my pump seems to be functioning fine, 2 years later.....
Good luck

Thanks for the reply, Grimdog. Contacted local company which refurbishes haldex pumps, they stated that 7.5 ohms (which is what I get) means the pump is dead. But I still have my doubts, since it makes the high pitched sound. I also wouldn't want to change the pump for 300 EUR just to come to a conclusion that it was ECU in the and, which would be additional 3-400. Did changing the pump work for you? Again - no DTCs.

When Bell’s serviced my Haldex Austen ran the pump out of the Haldex in some oil on the bench powering it from a battery. You could clearly see the oil flow.

blaster1232 wrote:

Thanks for the reply, Grimdog. Contacted local company which refurbishes haldex pumps, they stated that 7.5 ohms (which is what I get) means the pump is dead. But I still have my doubts, since it makes the high pitched sound. I also wouldn't want to change the pump for 300 EUR just to come to a conclusion that it was ECU in the and, which would be additional 3-400. Did changing the pump work for you? Again - no DTCs.

thanks for this posting