How to put an SRS Airbag steering wheel centre on your non airbag car

[HamaTime™]

Installing VS Airbag steering wheel center to non airbag car

Before I start, as usual I take no responsibility for any damage, injury, etc etc howsoever caused by using this how to.

I also give some credit to Veriton (a fellow forum member) for assisting me with some wiring questions I had when I attempted this.

You may want to remove the horn fuse (in engine bay fusebox) so you don't piss off the neighbours. Or you could just make sure you don't connect the black and purple wires from one side together whilst attempting this job, so you don't keep setting the horn off.

What you will need
1. Short handled phillips head screwdriver
2. Wire cutters
3. Soldering iron
4. Solder
5. Electrical Tape
6. VS SRS Airbag Steering Wheel Center



PROCESS

1. Unscrew the Original Steering wheel center
Unscrew the 4 screws holding the steering wheel center to the steering wheel frame itself. They are usually phillips head screws, so you will need a small handled (short) screwdriver



2. Remove the center
Just gently pull the center away from the splines and it should just come out, with the horn pad connectors still attached.





3. Cut the Horn pad wiring
In order to rewire the SRS center, it is not just a simple 'unplug' and 'plug back in' job. Because the SRS Center has two plugs for the horn pad connector, rather than just one for the original. So you will need to get your wire cutters and cut the wires where marked, and strip back at least 1.5 cm of wire insulator in preparation for soldering. Once you have cut the wires, put a tag on each wire, so put Left on both the left Black and purple wires and a Right tag on both black and purple right wires, so you don't get confused when wiring up the hornpad on the SRS Center.



4. Preparing the SRS Center wiring
Ok your starting center should have 6 wires, two wires coming from each hornpad into 2 plugs with 2 wires connecting the two plugs, basically a 'bridge'. So your black wire is obviously your negative (if anyone needs to know that - for the rest of this how to it's pretty basic, just join black to black and purple to purple). So your going to want to cut the wires just before they reach the plug, and throw away both plugs and the 'bridging' wires between the two plugs. (Unless you wanted to keep those plugs as spares).



5. Removing the Gold Frame plate and the Airbag detonator and the Airbag itself
Now that you have prepared the wiring it is a simple process of undoing the 6 nuts on top of the gold frame plate that holds the center together and also encases the silver airbag detonator in the center. It is a fairly simple task of just unscrewing them and then removing them. Pull up on the gold plate and with a bit of negotiation it should come off. Then just pull out the Airbag detonator (big silver round thing in the middle and throw that in the bin or sell it, whatever you want to do.





6. (OPTIONAL) Pulling out the airbag and cutting it out
Now this is an optional step, however I did it just because I wanted to see how the airbag center worked and because I wanted more room behind the center in order for the horn pad wiring not to be tangled and squashed in between the wheel frame and the wheel center. This is a fairly simple step of just pulling it out (takes about 20 minutes to do it properly) and getting a stanley knife (make sure it is sharp) and just cutting it out and then neatening it up.

7. Wiring up the horn pads
Ok now whether or not your tore out the airbag itself, reattach the gold frame plate and screw it in. and make sure you have done the correct wiring alterations to the SRS center as described in Step 4. Make sure you have stripped back all wires on the car and on the center ready for soldering. If you were like me, I used the bridging wire that connected the two SRS hornpad plugs together to make the wires longer, to make the wiring job easier, this is up to you though. Now get your soldering iron and solder ready and tie together the loose ends of the wires (left black wire on the steering wheel to the left black wire on the SRS center, left purple wire on steering wheel to the left purple wire on the SRS center and vice versa with the right side). Get your solder and put a decent solder covering on the tied wires. Then get your electrical tape and tape up each wire join. Test both the left and right horn pads on the new center and see if they work, if they both do then you have done it correctly, if not, go over this step to see what you did wrong (NOTE, IF YOU REMOVED THE FUSE AS I SUGGESTED AT TOP OF THREAD THEN MAKE SURE YOU CHECK TO SEE IF YOU HAVE PUT IT BACK IF YOU REMOVED IT IN THE FIRST PLACE. BEFORE YOU GO FIDDLING WITH YOUR WIRING JOB WHICH MAY BE PERFECT). Congratulations, the wiring is done, now push your new center up and line it up with the steering wheel frame and push each spline in so it is a snug fit. Then re attach all four screws at the back of the wheel frame and make sure that they hold. (NOTE I HAD TO USE SLIGHTLY BIGGER SCREWS BECAUSE THE ORIGINALS WERE TOO SMALL, CHECK SCREW SIZES ON GOLD PLATE BEFORE PUTTING BACK)

Re attach new SRS Center and job done!

[vsiicalais]

Great write! You can also use the VT SRS centre on a VS wheel as they are the same wheel, only difference between the VT and VS wheel is the actual steering wheel centre that attaches to the car. Other than that they are the same. I used the VT SRS centre on my car as it looks nicer than the VS SRS one.

[HamaTime™]

Great write! You can also use the VT SRS centre on a VS wheel as they are the same wheel, only difference between the VT and VS wheel is the actual steering wheel centre that attaches to the car. Other than that they are the same. I used the VT SRS centre on my car as it looks nicer than the VS SRS one.

Yes you can put a VT one on as well. They look pretty sweet as well, however I prefer the VS look on the VS just because it blends into the interior, dash and fascia better than the VT one.

[RazzaCaine]

dumb question coming up here.... if you do this to your car and leave the airbag in, is there anyone of having the airbag actually usable like in an srs factory equiped car or is this simply to get the "better" looking srs steering wheel??

[HamaTime™]

Yeah, basically just to get the 'better' looking SRS Centre.

No you can't put an airbag into a non airbag standard car. Unless you have about $5k handy!