Everything

Well, I'm waiting to see if my water-leak repair to daughters Corsa C has worked and therefore some of the heavy bursts of rain we have just been enjoying should help test that.

Once we do know it has worked I can get all the sound-proofing and carpet back in and whilst I'm there I hope to find out what is wrong with the rear seat release catch.

Cheers, T i m

p.s. When removing the sound proofing from over the transmission tunnel (do we still call it that on a FWD car?) I lifted the air bag box. Whist I did so fairly carefully (and with the battery disconnected) I was wondering just how sensitive it was? Is it something that could be 'set / triggered', even when not powered up or is it a temporary / dynamic thing, only triggering when powered up and when sufficient deceleration is detected?

It needs a specific set of things happen to make it go off, if you are working near airbag bits then you should disconnect the battery for a while before you touch them. Voltage spikes by disconnecting things while powered are the things that could cause unexpected operation IIUC

I don't think the box or sensors would remain in a triggered condition if you did manage to knock them enough while the system is disconnected. you need really violent changes in movement direction to set it off in any case, or every speed hump would be problem :)

Understood (and thanks).

Good point, it's just that I was concerned that if the box got a 'tap' or was slightly dropped as I lifted it off it's mounting studs, if that would be sensed as more of a 'shock' condition [1] than say just hitting a speed bump faster than you thought would be ok (as they all seem to vary re what speed you can take them comfortably).

Obviously I'll try to handle it as gently as possible, I was just wondering if there was any specific advice etc.

Cheers, T i m

So if you lose all power on the motorway and plough into something the air bag won't go off?

The air bag triggers are impact sensors mounted elsewhere in the car and not the air bag unit itself.

Ah, right, I think that must of been what MrC was meaning when he mentioned 'box' and 'sensors'.

So, the bit I'm talking about is just the 'brains', the bit you might be able to talk to with an OBD tool?

Cheers, T i m

From the postings, it still looks like there is a wired connection between sensors and the airbag. This must be powered somehow by electricity. Hence, is there a fuse or a switch to disable the connection?

Permalive, usually. If you're going to start fannying with the airbags, disconnect the battery and go for a coffee break before touching anything

- there's capacitors to store charge in the event of the collision ripping the battery out.

And do not do what I did. Got some new seats for the Audisaurus and nice they were too from a much later car of course:).

Almost fitted, needed a little mod doing and seemed to have some electric motors to move the seat up and down. Someone thinks he must have a play with them and connects up a 12 volt power source.

You can imagine what that did connect to. Ears were ringing around half an hour afterwards and the airbag ripped the side of the seat off which is what they/it was supposed to have done;!...

Thanks for the tip.

In this case though I don't think I was going anywhere near anything 'sensitive', airbag wise.

And the battery was disconnected in any case. ;-)

Those nice latching connectors under the front seats do seem to be overkill when just carrying what I assume to be the two wires to seat belt light switches (although I can see why they would still be very important etc).

So far and after some pretty heavy rain (some whilst she was driving, in case it makes difference), daughter informs me it's all still dry in there.

Now we just have to find a predictably dry day when she doesn't need the car for work to get all the soundproofing and carpet back in.

Oh, I did notice a bit of rust on the vertical section at the very back of the o/s inner sill (right in front of the rear seat). I was wondering if that came from the inside when the carpet was wet that side (and it was 'sodden' at one point) or if it might be coming in from the outside (ie, is that a known rust spot on a 2001 Corsa C)?

I intend treating it with some of that stuff that neutralises rust and converts it to something passive and them maybe putting a bit of Hammerite over the top?

Cheers, T i m

I must admit we did similar when taking the carpet out. We initially disconnected the battery, took the front seats and carpets out and then found the key didn't seem to fit in the tailgate lock. So we had to re-connect the battery to make use of the central locking again (with the seats disconnected and the centrally mounted air-bag thingy not bolted down etc.

Ouch! ;-(

Cheers, T i m

p.s. That reminds me, we still need to sort the tailgate lock out. The key wouldn't really go in at all initially and I found with some poking and scraping with the fine screwdriver blade on my Leatherman that it seemed to be full of some sort of corrosion or stuff that came out in the form of a white powder? After a while the key would go in a bit but it still didn't feel right. I'll probably take the lock out and check it out properly. I'm assuming that even though it's centrally locked and unlocked it should still be openable with a key?