Heldex unit on Freelander

dpj001 · Mar 2, 2015

I have a clonk from my Heldex unit and the local dealer confirmed it and gave me a price. I see on the web you can buy an "alleged" new one for circa £300/£350. Has anyone any experience or recommends on buying one at a lower price than the dealer £3k quote!

The Mad Hat Man · Mar 2, 2015

Heldex? Haldex?
Intro?

:welcome:

GrumpyGel · Mar 2, 2015

New Haldex for £300 - yeh right!

The Mad Hat Man · Mar 2, 2015

thats what I thought - but freelander 2 rear diff haldex unit range rover evoque haldex unit brand new | eBay

GrumpyGel · Mar 2, 2015

Bloody hell, I'm astounded. That's miles cheaper than a new simple old VCU !!

freelance · Mar 2, 2015

Give Austen at bell engineering a call, he is making progress on haldex units

GrumpyGel · Mar 2, 2015

If you can get them new for that sort of price, I don't suppose there will be much money in it for Bell to recondition them. Unless these ones are totally ****e of course!

Nodge68 · Mar 3, 2015

LR Haldex units can be found very cheap. If only the wife's Audi TT Haldex were that cheap. I wonder if they will fit?

GrumpyGel · Mar 3, 2015

I wonder if it could be adapted to replace the Freelander VCU? It presumably takes signals from an ECU on the F2 - but maybe a simple switch to activate on the dash, or an app monitoring the F1 wheel speed sensors. After all the VCU replacement threads on LZ, this is probably the most viable! (if its small enough).

Nodge68 · Mar 3, 2015

GrumpyGel said:
I wonder if it could be adapted to replace the Freelander VCU? It presumably takes signals from an ECU on the F2 - but maybe a simple switch to activate on the dash, or an app monitoring the F1 wheel speed sensors. After all the VCU replacement threads on LZ, this is probably the most viable! (if its small enough).

For the couple of hundred quid a recon VCU costs, it just isn't worth the effort. Giving that the Haldex isn't that reliable either, I can't see the point.
My wife's TT had a new Haldex at 70K miles at a massive £1200!!. That's 6 X more than a reconditioned VCU.

The Mad Hat Man · Mar 3, 2015

GrumpyGel said:
I wonder if it could be adapted to replace the Freelander VCU? It presumably takes signals from an ECU on the F2 - but maybe a simple switch to activate on the dash, or an app monitoring the F1 wheel speed sensors. After all the VCU replacement threads on LZ, this is probably the most viable! (if its small enough).

if it is like the X-Trail unit it has a specialised ecu which takes into account pitch. yaw, acceleration, braking, wheel speed and a few other things as well - not easy

There is a writeup on here of how it works.

GrumpyGel · Mar 3, 2015

Nodge68 said:
For the couple of hundred quid a recon VCU costs, it just isn't worth the effort. Giving that the Haldex isn't that reliable either, I can't see the point.
My wife's TT had a new Haldex at 70K miles at a massive £1200!!. That's 6 X more than a reconditioned VCU.

Yeh, but these F2/Evoke Haldex units are for sale new at £275 - that's 2/3rds the price of a new VCU. Hopefully as well, when a Haldex breaks, it breaks 'open' not 'siezed'.

The Mad Hat Man said:
if it is like the X-Trail unit it has a specialised ecu which takes into account pitch. yaw, acceleration, braking, wheel speed and a few other things as well - not easy

There is a writeup on here of how it works.

Absolutely, there will be lots of variables in the logic of when (and how much?) to engage and disengage it - but that sort of thing is bread and butter to the Arduino (type) guys. All the vehicle related data is available via ODB and if you're going to include things like yaw and pitch then those bits of an Arduino jigsaw are readily available.

There's no absolute need to replace the VCU, it does a pretty good job, but this could be a viable 'community' type project to see if it could work

Lets face it, there's plenty of interest in doing it.

The Mad Hat Man · Mar 3, 2015

http://www.landyzone.co.uk/lz/f9/hcu-hippo-coupling-unit-tm-206320.html

http://www.landyzone.co.uk/lz/f3/current-controller-38656.html

http://www.landyzone.co.uk/lz/371416-post16.html

http://www.landyzone.co.uk/lz/attachments/f3/3219d1189803905-current-controller-tf30.jpg

seethe date of those threads

GrumpyGel · Mar 4, 2015

lol - the idea's been kicking around for a long time

Maybe someone will run with it now the Haldex units can be bought for the price of a VCU.

Are those diagrams for the Nissan unit you were looking at? The thing that jumps out at me straight away, isn't the complex bits of mechanical or electrical engineering - its that simple little warning "Large difference in diameter of front/rear tires"! How many IRDs & Diffs would have been saved (equates to money!) if LR had put that little bulb on the Freelander's dash! Mine would never have gone! Such a shame.

austen · Mar 4, 2015

its a non starter, the haldex is built into the rear diff so cant just use it on a FL1 in replacement of VCU. Maybe you could try and fit a FL2 diff to a FL1 but it would require custom rear subframe and then there would be ratio differences. Even if you overcame the physical installation problems, the electronics would be another mountain to climb, the haldex ecu reads from wheel sensors/abs sensors, steering sensors ....... It would cost more than the FL1 to install. Buy a FL2 if you want a Haldex ;-)

DastardlyDan · Mar 4, 2015

Fit in place of the VCU itself - front prop needs to be replaced to one with a flange on both ends.

Rear output of the Haldex needs to have an addition support bearing in all likelihood - the output of the rear appears to be a spline, so a hub may need to be made for this. There is however a VERY small chance that the stock rear prop shares the spline...

0v in = off

12v in = on (50:50 power split)

Simple PWM signal at 50%, will give a continuous 75:25 split. Turn it off for normal road cruising. Complexity in control can be added once it's up and running.

Relatively speaking - it's quite a simple task

austen · Mar 4, 2015

???? The freelander 2 haldex is part of a the diff, so it's not a simple task

DastardlyDan · Mar 4, 2015

edit:

For some of us, it's quite a simple task

austen · Mar 4, 2015

Lol, have you ever even looked underneath a car?? I build several of these diffs a week I know how they work. If you want to a fit a FL 2 haldex to a FL1 go ahead, please take some photos as you do it so we can see the simple task pmsl!!

The Mad Hat Man · Mar 4, 2015

GrumpyGel said:
lol - the idea's been kicking around for a long time

Maybe someone will run with it now the Haldex units can be bought for the price of a VCU.

Are those diagrams for the Nissan unit you were looking at? The thing that jumps out at me straight away, isn't the complex bits of mechanical or electrical engineering - its that simple little warning "Large difference in diameter of front/rear tires"! How many IRDs & Diffs would have been saved (equates to money!) if LR had put that little bulb on the Freelander's dash! Mine would never have gone! Such a shame.

yes - it is the x-trail device. the beauty being those 3 switches - 2wd/auto/4wd - that is a real bonus.

However, I agree with Austen (for once

) the price of a VCU is (relatively) cheap if costed over its expected MTBF. It is not worth the effort, unless the cost is secondary to the fun of the project.

Heldex unit on Freelander

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