Damn crafty Japanese.....

So I'm in the process of putting an aftermarket steering wheel on the Miata. Obviously, in order to do so, I'm going to have to remove the airbag. I hate working with airbags and it always makes me paranoid driving with high explosives a foot from my face, so I'm more than happy to get rid of the damn thing. Anyway, I took the wheel off the other day to test fit a part and decided not to plug the airbag back in. Instead, I made sure to tape up the connector really well and keep it away from all things metal. Done, I thought....

Of course, the ECU sees something missing and triggers the 'Air Bag' light. Blink, blink, blink......blink blink blink. Very annoying. Ok I thought, I'll just take the bulb out. I know the airbag is disabled and I don't care. So I take the dash apart and pull the bulb out. I turn the key on and .... BEEP BEEEP BEEP. Great. Theres a buzzer that goes off if the light is burned out or taken out. I'm smarter than that, i think. So I get a small piece of wire and solder it across the contacts to 'simulate' the light being in there. Again, the BEEP. WTF!

Finally I just gave up and painted the goddamn bulb black. Lets seem them devise a way to detect that!

Cliff notes: I was owned by a japaneese engineer.

You have to solder a resistor into the connector once you remove the airbag. I cannot remember which one I used when I did my passenger side airbag, but I have not had any problems in the 2+ years since I did this. Maybe the :batman: board will have the correct resistor in a thread over there.

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Originally Posted by brock

You have to solder a resistor into the connector once you remove the airbag. I cannot remember which one I used when I did my passenger side airbag, but I have not had any problems in the 2+ years since I did this. Maybe the :batman: board will have the correct resistor in a thread over there.

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Yep... measure the resistance of the airbag and head on down to Radio Shack!

Of course you could always to what the previous owner of my vehicle did... a piece of black electrical tape over the light and snip snip the buzzer.

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Originally Posted by Treibenschnell

Of course you could always to what the previous owner of my vehicle did... a piece of black electrical tape over the light and snip snip the buzzer.

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Yep... I unplugged my buzzer long ago.

Just unplug the airbag modules... They are a separate system and the car will run fine without them.

DO NOT just paint the bulb black. If you leave the airbag system in an error state too long it will self destruct. There is a thermal fuse wrapped in a heater... that heater is controlled by a couple of transistors connected to the CPU inside. The CPU will turn on the heater & blow the fuse.

Or you could take 'em out and sell them along with the airbag on eBay. :D

RJ

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Originally Posted by channelmaniac

Or you could take 'em out and sell them along with the airbag on eBay. :D

RJ

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I thought it was illegal to transport explosives (airbags) through the mail system.

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Originally Posted by Treibenschnell

I thought it was illegal to transport explosives (airbags) through the mail system.

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You can ship things like airbags through UPS & FedEx, but it costs a small fortune.

It is a simple resistor you connect between the two wires. I have several in stock and would be glad to give you one if you come by. It is hard to find this resistor locally, but if you are on the West side of Dallas you can go to Tanner Electronics off Valwood and I35, they have it. You need a 3 ohm resistor.

Gary

Hmm I had my new steering wheel + airbag shipped from Germany with no problems and no major shipping expense. Maybe they couldn't read German :-D