Xantia Airbag light

Post by **philhoward** » 12 May 2007, 08:53

I've got a working Xantia one stripped off my old Mk1 VSX if it'll fit..?

Post by **xantia_v6** » 12 May 2007, 10:28

DickieG wrote:
AndersDK wrote:05 - 4112 X6 - ROTATING SWITCH (approx £60)
- DRIVERS AIR BAG AND WITHOUT REMOTE RADIO CONTROL
Take a look at ebay listing number 160116024866

I need one with stereo controls

philhoward wrote: I've got a working Xantia one stripped off my old Mk1 VSX if it'll fit..?

I think I have found (a used) one at £14 delivered, just waiting for confirmation that it is from a car with passenger airbag.
Thanks.

Post by **xantia_v6** » 19 May 2007, 10:19

The replacement connector has now been fitted, and the warning light is now behaving itself.

I wasted a couple of hours because after assembly, the warning light was still flashing, so I checked the pre-tensioner caonnectors, and the passenger airbag connector, removed the steering wheel and checked the connectors there, all to no avail.

Reassembled everything, light still flashing. I decided to leave it as it was, and maybe try to borrow a fault reader.

I then moved the car out of the driveway, and on switching on the ignition after that, the airbag light went out. So there must be some sort of fault memory that gets erased, but I don't know what the trigger is, because I must have switched the ignition on and off about 30 times, started the engine about twelve times (including idling it for a coupled of minutes) with no effect, until I moved the car.

Post by **xantia_v6** » 20 May 2007, 16:48

The saga continueth...
The (used) replacement connector turned out to be a dud. Two of the stereo controls were non-functional, and when the steering wheel was turned to an extremety, the airbag light came on again.

But it got me thinking that the previous faulty connector was not sensititive to steering wheel movement. It was totally fine one day, and totally faulty the next.

So I pulled the previous unit out of the bin, dismantled it, and traced the circuit with a multimeter and a needle to find the break in the conductor.

It turned out that the break was not actually in a part of the ribbon that is supposed to flex in action. It is inside the rubber sleeved portion at the inside end of the coil, just before it is folded for the 90 degree bend. Just at that point there is a little tooth that catches the edge of the ribbon to hold the rubber covered piece in the right place, and because of the position of the tooth, the strain is not spread across the width of the ribbon, but causes localised flexing on one edge, which just happens to be where one of the airbag conductors is.

I have carefully stripped back and resoldered the broken conductor, and have reassembed the ribbon with a spot of glue to move the point of flexing to be 20 mm further along. We will see how this lasts.

Sorry about no photos, but my current camera is not really suited to macro photography.