Airbag & air temp sensor electrical issue on my 94 T&C

Hi All,

I have another question about my project van, this is the one I R&R'd the
transmission on.

Today I went to one of the local dealerships where a relative works, to
have him set the
poinion factor in the trans computer. (the speedo was reading high, no
wonder, the computer
thought the tires on the van were larger than they were)

While he had the DRB plugged in I asked him to check out the airbag
computer. I had known
the van had been in a front end collision before I bought it and I knew the
passenger airbag had
blown, and in subsequent investigation I discovered the bag was completely
missing, just cleverly
covered over with a plate.

Well not only did the computer report that the passenger airbag was not
connected, it reported
that the airbag warning light was open circuit, the drivers side airbag was
not connected, and
the seatbelt retractor sensor was open circut. My brother in law warned
that the drivers airbag
might in fact also be missing as he said there are people that make fake
airbags. I am not worried
much about that as I know of a wrecking yard where a 94 van of my interior
color is located, and
I had already bought a passenger airbag of the right color out of that same
yard. (and yes I pulled
the bag myself, and no the van I pulled it out of had not been in a serious
collision)

What I'm a bit concerned about is the seat belt retractor sensor. For
starters, which side, passenger
or driver, should I look? The wiring diagram in the FSM only shows ONE
passenger retractor sensor?
Could that be right? Or are there sensors on both retractors?

Also another thing along these lines is the overhead console ambient air
temp isn't working - I know
it's not the sensor because I've pulled the console and tested continuity
from the sensor plug in
the front to the console, and one of the wires to the sensor has no
continuity. In looking at the wring
diagram it -appears- that the ambient air temp wires go right down the RH
column, which I assume
is next to the seat belt retractor sensor. I'm wondering if there's
possibly a connector there which
might be involved somehow with both the airbag retractor and the overhead
temp sensor, perhaps
disconnected?

The other oddity about the wiring disgram on the overhead sensor is that
ACCORDING to the
diagram, one wire goes from the front sensor, through the firewall, through
a RH instrument panel
green plug, then directly up the RH column to the overhead console. This
makes perfect sense.
The OTHER wire goes from the front sensor,
through the firewall, through the RH instrument panel green plug, then
diverts way over the the
left rear quarter panel whereupon it passes through the LH rear power vent
window plug, then comes
back to the overhead console. Is this a misprint? The harnesses in the car
don't even appear to go
that way, there's no reason to make a huge loop like this to the other side
of the van, and inspection
of the LH rear power vent window connector shows 2, not 3, conductors in
it's plug. And it
is probably no coincidence but this particular wire is the one without
continuity - there is no
continuity from the green RH instrument panel plug to the overhead console
plug for that side of
the air temp sensor pair.

One last question, just completely out of curiosities sake, what laws (if
any) were broken by
the disaling of the airbag system, in particular the hiding of the missing
passenger airbag by a
cover that looks like an airbag (probably the original airbag cover, torn
off the deployed
bag assembly) I bought this van for $200 so I was expecting anything goes,
but I'm wondering
if I should report this to someone purely for the sake of someone compiling
statistics, if
nothing else.

Ted

 

Do you have a motor vehicle department in your state? If so, you might
ask the law enforcement division if such and such is legal and what
not. Sometimes the regular motor vehicle department might know or can
look up the state laws concerning airbags. Now if there is also a
federal law, I kind of doubt that, you could call whoever does motor
vehicles. NHTSA? Covering up an airbag sounds far worse than the usual
odometer messing. Depending on your state, that might be encroaching
upon criminal territory or serious motor vehicle infractions?? Now
after guessing, I wonder what's going to be the case.

 

Actually I checked, there is a Federal law, your not allowed to disable
mandated
safety equipment without an exemption, and I don't think they would issue
one
for this. They would probaby issue an exemption for a switch to turn them
off
but not to remove them. But I don't know, I'd be interested in others
opinions.

However I wonder if there's further laws broken because of the effort to
hide it.
It's not like the van was sold with gaping holes where the bags were
supposed to be.

Ted

 

I would think that the vehicle would not pass a state inspection if the
airbag was missing, go back to the seller/state inspector

Glenn Beasley
Chrysler Tech

 

The State of Oregon does not require an inspection for vehicles sold
through private sale, in order to issue title. In order to issue
registration
all that is needed is an emissions inspection. And the emissions people
do not pay any attention to airbags, in fact the inspectors do not even get
in the vehicle
for an AWD car that is 1995 or earlier - because their dyno is a 2-tire
dyno. All they do is a tailpipe sniff at 2500 rpm and look for HC levels.
In fact I've already run mine through an emissions inspection station just
to see if it would pass (it did)

What complicates it from a legal perspective also is the buyer I got this
from was located in Washington state, and had bought the van back in
March from an Oregon resident, and had never filed for a title in
Washington.
When I bought it in order to get title I gave the state the Oregon title,
and bills of sale showing the sale from the Oregon resident to the
Washington resident and then to me. All the bills of sale did was get
me out of paying the penalty for late title transfer. Oregon could not
of course register a Washington title, so the vehicle title history shows
the prior owner before me as the Oregon owner (that sold the van in
March to the Washington resident) not the Washington owner who
was the actual prior owner..

Ted

 

How confusing??//*@#

 

No, it's a common scam here. Washington vehicle registration is a lot
higher and worse is that
they charge an adjusted sales tax on any vehicle registered there that comes
in from out of state.
The way the scam works is that the washington residents buy used vehicles by
private sale from
Oregon residents then never retitle them or register them in Washington. As
long as they keep to
the Washington side of the border, if the cops see expired tags on the
plates they assume it's an
Oregon driver and they don't have jurisdiction to write a tags ticket so
they leave them alone.

If the driver gets pulled over
for a moving violation they just argue that they just bought the car a week
earlier and haven't titled it yet.

I have gotten very cautious now when I sell an older vehicle, I make the
buyer sign and date the
registration and keep copies of it when I send it in.

Ted

 

Interesting. Around here, one state, New Jersey, will threaten to
suspend the driver's license if the car sold cannot be verified with
the other state's registration. Now that gets people's attentions. Your
approach sounds prudent.

 

That's a different deal though, and one that wouldn't stop the
Oregon/Washington scam. What NJ is doing is the assumption
that if the title cannot be verified (and it's the title, not the
registration,
I looked it up) it is a forgery that someone has created because the
original title is being held by a bank or car dealer for collateral on a
loan. With the Oregon/Washington scam, the title is never in question
because it's never presented.

This actually does bring up another good point, though, which is
the risk of buying a vehicle through private sale - with computers these
days it's getting easier to forge a title. An unscruplous vehicle seller
could forge a title for a vehicle held by a lienholder, and sell it through
private sale, and the buyer isn't going to find out that the seller never
legally owned the car until they go to title it.

This reminds me of something that happened to a friend of mine almost
20 years ago. She had bought an old early 70's car from a coworker
of a friend for $400, this car was really in bad shape, ran like crap and
all that. She also did not have a drivers license at the time. Anyway, she
went to the DMV to get the title transferred and they wouldn't do it
because the original owner hadn't signed off on the title. She took it back
to the seller and it turned out he had repossessed the car from someone
who he had loaned money to - and when he originally took the title
as collateral when he made the initial loan, he had never got the borrower
to sign over title interest. I called the original owner of the vehicle and
that person of course refused to sign the title and in fact wanted the car
back. She eventually got the coworker to forge the original owners
signature on the title, and got it retitled with the DMV. About 6 months
later the car finally did die, but that's another story.

Ted

 

Thought I would post an update to this posting for those interested.

I replaced the passenger airbag. I checked the drivers bag and found
the bag disconnected right inside the steering wheel.

I tool the bezel for the airbag warning light off and discovered the light
was gone but not only that, whoever disabled the bulb had wrecked the
circuit board right around where the light goes in. So I soldered a light
bulb in.

As for the belt retractor, in the 94 van neither retractor is of the
explosive
type that has a connection to the air bag computer. The drivers buckle
has a switch in it but that's it. It must have been a spurious error
message
from the DRB because once I got everything back together and plugged
back in, the airbag light didn't stay lit.

Needless to say when doing all this I had the battery disconnected and
I also shorted all the airbag plugs before plugging them into the bags
just to make sure no residual energy was left in the circuit.

And I also found out what the problem was with the ambient air temp
sensor circuit. One of the previous owners of that van had decided to
drill a hole under the glovebox to mount something or other. When
drilling he went though the dash plastic, through the metal behind the
dash, and right straight into a wiring harness. He severed one of the
wires -
that went to the temp sensor. The wire actually was going into the
green connector that feeds all the wires for the body, back into the
right side from the instrument panel.

Ted

 

Ted Chrysler didn't use Seat belt pretensioner on the 94 Mini Vans They Used
them on the Full size vans at that year.

Glenn Beasley
Chrysler Tech

 

I think whoever wrote the software for the DRB tool didn't know that.

Ted