Air Bags in a bronco?

[Bitch'nBronco]

Im putting a 94-04 mustang dash in the Bronco (cool right?) and Im thinkin about puttin the airbags in. I found all the parts (sensors, bags, brain) on ebay. Think I should put it in, or just leave it out?

 

[NoJoe]

When I first saw this thread I thought you were talking about my ex wife, leave it out.

 

[BYUBRONC]

You need to consider that it is a chemical explosion. You typically sit pretty close to the steering wheel in an EB. They are typically computer controlled. Are you going to wheel it. Would hate to see a tree or rock set it off. Your bumers would have to give to set it off. NO, sounds like to much trouble, buy you some good harnesses and a cage.

 

[HotWheels]

Depends how u set it up. Be interesting for sure....

 

[barrelroll]

It sounds like a mess, I'm much rather have a nice seat, cage and 5 point then air bags. I've endoed at 45mph in a wrangler with no air bags, factory sport bar, and stock seat belts and walked away with no damage to driver or passanger.

 

[grant_71]

DO NOT DO IT!!!!!!! For your own safety, all airbags are shaped differently, have different delays and different forces depending on the car they are built for. A Mustang is a very light car, with not much of a frame, the bags are built for high speed impact when the car crushes upon itself. EB's do not have crush zones, so you really have no idea where to properly mount the sensors. if you are really worried about safety build a decent cage, mount the seats properly, and use a good seatbelt setup, and with the mustang steering wheel you shouldn't be able to shish-kabob yourself on the steering column. I have set off a couple bags just for fun, and believe me, I would never want one to go off in front of me. Good luck with the rest of the setup, I want to see that Mustang dash in.

Good Luck
Grant

 

[Broncobowsher]

Don’t do it. It may look neat. It will be a conversation piece. It will not and cannot be made into a safety system to work correctly. The complete body/frame structure is completely different. The system tuning would be completely wrong.

Considering cars can blow bags when the subframe hits a parking curb (early airbag cars were known for this) you couldn’t make it down a lot of trails without those things popping when you tap a rock. Trucks and offroad vehicles have a different airbag tuning to prevent this. That is part of the deployment issue.

Second the airbags are tuned for the vehicle interior. Seating position, column movement in a collision, front subframe collapse rates, interior volume and other factors.

Airbags are not a soft cushion for you to land on. They inflate VERY HARD! They provide a very broad surface area to hold you in the seat. Being held in your seat during the milliseconds of a collision is a good thing, you are being slowed down by the car balling up, not sliding forward and hitting the seatbelts/steering wheel after the car balled up. Being that a bronco doesn’t ball up in a frontal collision like a car does, it will get ugly.

The timing would probably be so wrong that in a collision the Bronco would come to a stop much faster then a car would. By the time that airbag gets deployed the truck would already be nearly stopped and you would already be getting close to eating steering wheel. At that point you are now greeted with a bomb that was intended to hold you in the seat. Now the collision with your body just got worse as the airbag hit you instead of stopping just in front of you. It would be about the same as the reward facing child car seats popping little kids that are riding in the front seat of a car (what all the new warning tell you to never do) only you will be doing it to yourself.

Now for swapping in the mustang dash, cool. Do an aftermarket steering wheel without the airbag. For the passenger side, remove the airbag and craft a little storage bin to toss in a set of gloves or something.

 

[sstlaure]

No no no no no no no.....

Please don't put that airbag in your vehicle and be very careful in handling a live airbag assembly. You don't realize how much force you are holding in your hands. That airbag will fully decelerate a ~200 lb occupant (I can't remember what the 95% male size is these days) in something like 5 milliseconds.

If you have it sitting on your work bench, please set it down with the inflator assembly on the bottom and the door facing upwards. Should the airbag deploy into a surface it would be launched instantaneously at a couple hundred miles per hour.

I work for Ford and previously worked restraints. Please don't do it. None of the calibrations/force directions would be correct for your vehicle and it would not, under any circumstances, perform as intended.

Now it is possible to remove just the airbag door from the entire airbag assembly and install that into your IP to fill out the airbag hole. You would then need to properly dispose of the live inflator assembly (best bet would be to take the whole thing to your local dealership and have them get rid of it.)

Personally you shouldn't even really be handling those at all.

When airbags are manufactured, it is done in a highly controlled, statically grounded work area.

 

[grs44310]

Don't do it.

The only air bags ever in a Bronco should be in the suspension, passenger seat or preferably the back seat.

 

[Bitch'nBronco]

Ok, I wont do it then. I will prolly just take the bags out and stick the cover back on it. Can they deploy if there isnt an electrical source going to them? Or should I just go get some allready deployed dash and install it. I know they are totally different shapes, and its gonna take some custom work. Im not at all afraid of that. Im going to basically cut it lengthwise just short of the clock (maybe shorter and delete the clock). We have a 94 cobra, and the lenghth is almost identical, its slightly short but thats fine and we're gonna make our own center section with a console and all sorts of other stuff. Im running a moded sport cage, with maybe some beard or those summit seats, 5 point simpson harnesses, and I dunno why I wanted the airbags, but I figured why the hell not. Didnt event think about bumps and detonating those suckers. Ill post pics when Im done with it. Thanks fer the help!

-John

 

[grant_71]

Well it has been said that a static shock can deploy them, i have never had one go off on accident, we have set a couple off, but you have to purposely jump the wires. Not saying to not be careful though. What i would do is take it apart from the backside, unhook all electrical sources, pull the charge and bag out from the backside (I would wear heavy gloves and a safty glasses) then take it outside.....and i will not condone that you take it outside, or that you hook long wires up to a battery...... that would be reckless;D

Grant

 

[broncow72]

A mechanic friend of mine said he could tell if the occupant of a car sent into the shop for accident repairs was driven by a woman by the facial expression left in the airbag from her make up. Said it was typical to see a face like a blow up doll.

Sorry for the hijack. And NO, don't bother. In fact, I'm not even too big on the mustang dash. But that's me.

 

[sstlaure]

If you deploy the bag, you destroy the airbag door (the part you really want to close out the IP) I've seen them deploy from ESD (Electro Static Discharge.) We spend a fortune grounding everything at the supplier assembly plants where these are made.

It is possible to disassemble the airbag assembly to get the door off & remove the inflator assembly (part that goes boom), but the risk is on you....

 

[JHD]

Your bumers would have to give to set it off.

Correct me if i'm wrong but I thought air bags were set off by an inertia switch not a sensor that gets touched when the bumper moves far enough in.

I like to see a pic of the mustang dash in a bronco. Doesn't sound too appealing....

 

[eb66to77]

No no no no no no no.....

Please don't put that airbag in your vehicle and be very careful in handling a live airbag assembly. You don't realize how much force you are holding in your hands. That airbag will fully decelerate a ~200 lb occupant (I can't remember what the 95% male size is these days) in something like 5 milliseconds.

If you have it sitting on your work bench, please set it down with the inflator assembly on the bottom and the door facing upwards. Should the airbag deploy into a surface it would be launched instantaneously at a couple hundred miles per hour.

I work for Ford and previously worked restraints. Please don't do it. None of the calibrations/force directions would be correct for your vehicle and it would not, under any circumstances, perform as intended.

Now it is possible to remove just the airbag door from the entire airbag assembly and install that into your IP to fill out the airbag hole. You would then need to properly dispose of the live inflator assembly (best bet would be to take the whole thing to your local dealership and have them get rid of it.)

Personally you shouldn't even really be handling those at all.

When airbags are manufactured, it is done in a highly controlled, statically grounded work area.

so what you are saying is that I have the worlds funniest and most surprising prank known to man sitting in the shed? I have the old airbag from my 750i. I will video that hilarity.

 

[sstlaure]

so what you are saying is that I have the worlds funniest and most surprising prank known to man sitting in the shed? I have the old airbag from my 750i. I will video that hilarity.

Either that or a Darwin award. They make one hell of a pop when they go off.;D The early airbags deployed even harder than the ones available today.

 

[Broncobowsher]

Correct me if i'm wrong but I thought air bags were set off by an inertia switch not a sensor that gets touched when the bumper moves far enough in.

I like to see a pic of the mustang dash in a bronco. Doesn't sound too appealing....

The sensor that trips an airbag detects a sudden negative change in velocity. That signal is then processed by the little box to determine if it thinks you are playing chicken with a bridge pillar while sleeping or not. If enough of the sensors say you lost the round of chicken, then it decides to blow the bag(at the right time) on your face.

Airbags are not the same today as they were 10 or 15 years ago. The sensors are getting more complex as is the programming behind them. The airbags now have multiple ignitors inside that fire in a varied delay pattern based on what it thinks you need for protection and how hard it should hit. For a while they were trying gas charges mixed with the explosive to cool the spent charge to keep burning down. Lots of crazy stuff. They are loud, sound like a shot gun going off, funny part is those that have had them pop in a wrech often say they never heard it go off.

The plants that build them are known for blowing up. Real bad reputation out here at the TRW plant 10 years ago. But as for personally handling them, they are actually quite safe. If you unplug them there is a shunt wire that shorts out the igintor so it has a very low chance of blowing. Do not cut the wires!, that defeats the safety shunt and leaves the squib vulnerable to ignition. Most airbags I have seen come apart fairly easily. look for common fasteners around the outside and take them off. I have yet to blow a bag with the cover off. I keep threatening to toss one in a lake and see if it works like dynomite fishing

 

[sstlaure]

Some airbags are now being manufactured non-shunted...Be careful regardless.

 

[Bitch'nBronco]

Ill go thru the back. We have a local salvage yard that has wrecked mustangs that arent in that bad of shape. So I just go get one of those, pull the bags out and throw them out.

 

[sstlaure]

The inflator is a the small can that has the yellow and orange connectors (female side) sticking out of it. Pass side airbags are usually a cylinder.