How to disconnect the airbag hose to remove front seats on VE Calais…!?

[Fu Manchu]

You need to remove the seat from the car. You still have the rails bolted in. You’ve partly disassembled the seat rather than removed the whole lot in one go and safely worked on it out of the car.

None of this is going to be easy for you until you remove the whole seat from the car.

The plastic trims come off and the bolts are located at the front and rear. They hold the whole seat to the floor pan.

I can not stress enough that you want the battery disconnected and the airbag fuse removed before you do this work at all.
If you have gone this far and not done that, it’s going to be really dangerous.

I’m not comfortable with the situation.

 

[Skylarking]

Other than the safety aspects and the risk to life in faffing about with pyrotechnics systems you’re not 110% clear about w.r.t safe handling/servicing, there is also the question of the legality of what you are doing to a presumably road registered car.

Rules are that you can only swap seats that came with or were manufacturer optional for your specific model year. If you need to change anything with respect to seat mounts, you must get engineering certification of such a mod. Even other seats from other models that bolt straight in will still require engineering certification.

Also, you can’t install non airbag seat in a vehicle that came from factory with side airbags and certification engineer will fail such AIUI.. Not sure of seatbelt pyrotechnic tensioners but I’ve heard that people must keep retractable seatbelts when installing harnesses just to remain road legal.. as such I’d expect pyrotechnic seatbelt tensioners must be retained..

So if your aftermarket seat is lacking side airbags, you’ll have an issue… Even reupholstering existing seats has legal requirements with respect to the burst through stitching around the side airbag…

The principle of all of this is you aren’t allowed to make a safe car less safe by removing the safety items the manufacturer has installed.

Best to contact Transport & Main Roads and enquire about the vehicle modification you are planning. Also read the Queensland Road Vehicle Modification Handbook Then get a copy of the service manual and read all the safety requirements when working around the various pyrotechnic safety system scattered about your car…

People have been killed playing with these systems and I don’t thing you want to add to the stats

PS: separate from safety risks, if you disconnect an airbag with the battery connected, the airbag fault lamp will light up and you’ll have to get the code cleared by someone with the tools (dealers charge like wounded bulls). If you put in a seat without airbags, the airbag fault lamp will stay on and your car is thus technically unroadworthy and your insurance may be voided if you ignore the warning

 

[Fu Manchu]

I should clarify, the VE has bolts holding what you have still connected to the car on the front or the back, I can't recall just now. The other side has tabs that hook into the chassis floor pan.