I have a escort 55 1.8d van and the air bag light is flashing on the dash i have tried to take the steering wheel off but it won't come off does anyone know how to get it off
{Shouting amended - DD}
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There is a nut behind the wheel.....................be careful ;o)
{Smiley added - DD}
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Oh you are awful.........but I like you !
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Before you start stripping out steering wheels try checking the seat belt buckle pre tensioner connections which are located under tthe trim panels at the side of the front seats.It is usually just a case of disconnecting and reconnecting the yellow multiplugs.
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Disconnect the battery in case the Airbag takes offence and goes off.
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If you really do need to take off the steering wheel, disconnect the battery first, the air bag may well get grumpy otherwise. Take off the column shrouds (TORX screws) and the underdash panel (posidriv heads). Then you can get to the yellow airbag connector under there. You will have to disconnect here as the connector to the contact ring behind the steering wheel will break if you try it. Unthread the airbag wiring up to the ring. Then remove the two hex head screws at the back of the steering wheel. They are 4 or 5 mm. This will allow the airbag and horn push assembly to come out and hang on their wires, then you can get to the 15 mm bolt that holds the steering wheel on. Slacken this bolt back about 1.0 mm, then pull like hell on the steering wheel rim, rocking it a little, with your feet on the floor. It will suddenly come loose and if you had removed the bolt it would have smashed you in the teeth. Which is painful, believe me. The wheel will come away with the contact ring.
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A friend of mine broke his nose removing a Nova steering wheel, he was smacking away at the back of the wheel for about 5 minutes & then WACK it came free, couldnt stop laughing.
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I must say that I know very little about airbags but remember reading somewhere, years ago, that the 'electric' that fires an airbag is stored in a capacitor well away from the battery. The reason being that in the event of a head on crash, the battery may well be disconnected before the sensors can initiate operation. I vaguely remember that on a Ford it's located somewhere under the dashboard near the steering column. Does this mean that disconnecting the battery might not stop an accidental airbag deployment ?
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Its best to leave 10 minutes from battery disconnection before unplugging the airbag to allow the back up capacitors to discharge.
Escort & early Mondeo pretty sure SRS control unit is inside the dash to right of steering column.
One way that will fire the system off is use a multimeter / electrical tester on the SRS wiring with the control unit / airbag / setabelt pretensioners still connected.
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