Stupid Air Bag!

[Flyin96M]

So a few years ago the Air Bag light came on in the 96 so I picked up a new to me air bag control module from this shady guy that lives out in the country. Says he has a yellow Miata with fat fenders but I'll just say he was shady. That was a long time ago and given that the car has to move faster than you can push it for an air bag to be effective it was not high on my to do list for the car. Now that the car has had a full drivetrain transplant and a certain someone asked why the light was on to which I stupidly answered it was at the top of my to do list. So last weekend I installed the new/used part which in a 95-97 requires removal of the dashboard only to find it was also no good. Did I mention I shipped it out to have it tested and per the company it tested OK? So now I'm back to square one.

A bit more research shows that these things seem to fail due to leaking capacitors. So any used unit you get could suffer the same fate. I then called a few companies that say they repair these things but all say nothing that old and good luck. Given the effort it takes to install this damn thing I don't really want to keep doing trial and error until I find one that works.

So my question is does anyone know a company that rebuilds these? My other options are expensive (buy a new one $500) or unpleasant (nothing and be subjected to passive aggressive behavior). Oh and don't think I haven't thought of just using black tape to cover the light. My head stone would read "Hear lies Stupid, he survived the car accident only to be killed by blunt force trauma to the head." I'm open to other suggestions that don't involve selling the car.

[Titus]

You might PM ChannelManiac and see if he might be interested in trying to fix it for fun.


P.S. I'd be happy to refund you money if you remember what you paid me for it.
P.S.S. Do you really care what your headstone reads? I would think you will be too dead to care. Put a nice Momo and some black tape on it and call it a day.

[OZMDD]

or a resistor in the airbag plug. How much confidence do you actually have in a 20 year old 1st gen airbag anyway?

[Gator Bait]

This

Put a nice Momo

Plus This

resistor in the airbag plug.

= WIN ..although I'm curious if you don't have a working bag controller does the resister work?

If it is leaking/faulty caps it should be easy enough to repair. And could have been fine when you bought it and gone bad sitting unused.

[Flyin96M]

Titus I have no idea what it was but no worries.

OZMDD I have as much confidence that it will save my life with our without the light on. I've had the damn thing go off before and it just caused a lot of damage without being much help. Resistor won't work since it just simulates the air bag. Module is fried so black tape is the easiest option.

Gator I actually replaced the factory wheel with a small diameter Raid wheel I got from Germany many years ago. Not my car but looks similar to this:
If it wasn't for the fact I love this wheel I would just put a Momo on it. May have to hit ChannelManiac up and see if he feels like looking at it.

[Rogue]

or a resistor in the airbag plug.

Nope!

Put a Nardi, that's too nice a car to put a Momo in.

[POS Racing]

I had the blue box rebuilt by a guy in Plano a couple of years back on my old '94.

History - http://www.dfwmiata.com/threads/19438

[Flyin96M]

I had the blue box rebuilt by a guy in Plano a couple of years back on my old '94.

History - http://www.dfwmiata.com/threads/19438

Thought you had but I fail at searching I guess. That is the same guy I sent it to that said it checked out fine and sent it back. Told him I wanted to replace the capacitors and he said no he doesn't do that. Just took the old one apart and the caps look fine to me. Not swollen and no signs of leaking.

[motorollow]

I think Titus should change his forum name to "Shady Fat Fenders".

[OZMDD]

Oops, misread. Thought it was the airbag unit that was bad. Rogue is correct that the resistor won't do anything about the light. I also love the OEM Nardi wheel.

[Flyin96M]

Nope!

Put a Nardi, that's too nice a car to put a Momo in.

Thanks Rogue and some day I hope to have you paint it so it will be even better

[effse7en]

You could just pull the airbag module entirely. The light will be on, but you can remove the bulb from the cluster without any buzzing, since that comes from the airbag module itself, not the main buzzer for the doors and stuff.