Seatbelt pretensioner wiring questions

[fleabagmatt]

2000 E-350

I've had an airbag light on for quite some time and I've mostly just done my best to ignore it. I also have a parasitic drain on the battery that I mostly ignored for far too long. My brain never made the connection that these two things might be related...

As I was cleaning out the van after a camping trip yesterday, I happened to notice a disconnected connector beneath the passenger seat. Further inspection revealed two bare wires hanging from the seat bottom. Turns out the wires pulled out of the seat side of the connector. (Yeah, the dreaded seat swivel wire pull!) Not knowing much about it, I thought I would match up wire colors to the other half of the connector, but they don't match - both wires coming out of the seat are solid yellow. I don't recall what color the wires coming from the floor are, but they are different from each other, and neither are solid yellow.

Assuming it didn't matter which wire connects to which (since they are the same color) I pushed them back into the connector without much thought of how they matched up. I reconnected the battery and fired up the van. Both my issues seemed to be resolved: 1) the airbag light didn't come on and 2) the battery drain dropped from 87 mA to just 15 mA.

Reading up a bit more on it this morning, I now know this is the seatbelt pretensioner wiring, and it seems like I may have dodged a bullet by randomly reattaching the wires.

So all that to get to my questions, as google hasn't been much help:

1) Should those wires have been attached in a specific manner, or is it simply creating a loop in the circuit and it doesn't matter which wires connect to which?

2) I simply pushed the wires back into the connector, but they are not secure, they can pull right back out and I have no idea how to actually secure them inside the plastic end. Is that possible, or should I just try to get my hands on a new set of wires with connector attached? Everything I searched for showed a yellow connector, but the one I have is white. I haven't been able to find an image or link to a connector that looks like what I have.

I am wondering if the best course of action would be to try and find a pretensioner that matches at a junk yard and replace the whole thing.

Edit, I just came across this photo from a thread here on SMF, my connector looks like the white one on the left:

 

[Twoxentrix]

I went through the same thing a while back, and believe the ‘official’ prognoses (believe it was from member carringb, who knows everything!) was it doesn’t make a difference since it just creates a ‘loop’.

 

[fleabagmatt]

Thanks for the reply. I can't imagine they would use the same color wire on there if it mattered what order they needed to be connected, but confirmation is good.

 

[1der]

Correct, wire pin orientation does not matter.

Are the pins attached to the wire or the wire pulled out of the pins? There should be a red plastic bar across the middle of the connector. The red plastic bar can be removed with tweezers or small needle nose pliers. The red bar is what keeps the pins secure.

Remove the red bar and re insert the pins so the little plastic detent arms can re-secure the pins. Re-insert the red plastic bar so it presses the arms into the slot in the pins.

If the pins are damaged or beyond repair, I would go to the salvage yard and find the correct connector and cut off the two connector pieces with a length of the wires still attached. Then you can splice that onto your damaged wires and be good to go.

Messing with the whole pretensioner assembly can be frustrating and many model years are only interchangeable within a couple of years of your model year.

 

[fleabagmatt]

The wire did not have any pins attached, it was just stripped, bare wire ends. So it must have pulled out of the pins and they are still inside the connector. A google image search turned up this image, my connector looks like this, other than solid yellow wires.

I poked at that red piece a bit thinking it might lock in the wires, but I didn't use much pressure, not wanting to break something. I'll have another look at it and see if I can get it apart.

I will likely see if I can find an intact connector at a salvage yard anyway, and use it to extend the wire so I don't pull it apart when using the seat swivel again.

 

[1der]

Around time code 35:00 I go over how to run the wires for the tensioner when installing the swivel bases.

 

[fleabagmatt]

Holy cow, that video was really helpful, thank you. Now I really want to skip out on work for the day so I can go home and see if I can fix that plug.

 

[batgirls]

Thanks for your post FleabagMatt,

I too have an airbag light on. It’s code 1-2, which often traces to a short or loose wire. I haven’t dug into and a few mechanics have declined to mess with it.

Do recall what pattern your light was flashing?

 

[fleabagmatt]

I do not recall the flashing pattern, sorry. I would say those connectors under the seats would be a good place to start looking, though.

I soldered the wires to the metal pins of the plug and put it all back together (and ran the wires through the hole in the swivel seat base as shown in 1der's video), no more airbag light, and hopefully no more parasitic drain.