Passenger airbag won't turn on. Could it be because of the seatbelt mod to stop the dinging?

My passenger airbag always says it's off indicated by the "off" light always being on. No matter who sits in the seat the off light is on and I don't know why. I did however disable the seatbelt dinging by removing the front cover of the seatbelt then removing a small spring. This doesn't make sense to me though. When you put your seatbelt into the reciver a little white piece of plastic is depressed telling the truck that someone has put their seatbelt on. When you take your seatbelt off there is a little spring under that what piece of plastic that pushes the plastic back into the up position. By removing that spring that white plastic is always down thus making the truck think the seatbelt is always on and therefore no dinging to tell you to put your seatbelt on. So if the truck always thinks a seatbelt is on why would that effect the airbag?


Am I thinking about this wrong? Did my seatbelt mod effect my passenger airbag? Is my driver side airbag also not working? What could it be?



Note: Before anyone jumps my shit to bad I just want to say I always wear my seatbelt when driving on the road. The only reason why I took it off is for when I go hunting and I'm on old logging roads where almost nobody is at, I'm driving slow and I am getting in and out of my truck very frequently.

 

Is it too much trouble to remove mod and put it back like it was ? I would also check the weight sensor under the seat and make sure it has not malfunctioned.

This post from a 2007 owner does show that a seal belt malfunctioning or altered can cause this off condition.

Occupant airbag sensor

 

Just an FYI, you can disable the seatbelt chime with Techstream, super easy.

If you know nothing about Techstream like me, this link will get you setup and Google/YouTube will help figure out what settings to change.

https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/how-to-techstream-in-5-minutes.1034923/

 

I would
1. Return the seatbelt latch back to original physical condition. Then check to see if it is fixed. Fucking with the mechanical parts of a safety system like that would be the last way I would go about getting rid of the chime…
2. Check the weight sensor in the front seat to be sure it isn’t unplugged or damaged.
3. Disable the chime using Techstream, or buy one of those 3D printed seatbelt clip “dummies” to plug into the passenger seat belt latch when you have a lunch box or something heavy in the front seat.

 

SRS uses combination of occupant classification and seatbelt sensor to arm the airbag.

 

Exactly. Hopefully you didn’t mess up the seatbelt pretensioner!

 

No it shouldn't be to hard. I am on a road trip so when I got back I was going to try that. I was just wondering about it so I thought I would ask. To me it doesn't make sense but I also have no idea what I am doing lol. I'll update after I try to put the spring back in.

 

I don't really see how I could really mess up anything. I didn't have to remove the seatbelt or anything. You can just pop the back face of your seatbelt receiver off without taking anything off. And then just remove a little spring. I found it on a YouTube video. I'll try to put it back in then see if that works. If not then I'll definitely take it in to make sure I actually didn't mess anything up.

 

I guess it fixed itself? I took the back part off of the seatbelt reciver and tried to put that spring back in but I wasn't able to. With the back of the receiver off I turned my truck on and moved that white clip into the up position indicating a seatbelt had not been put on. The regular seatbelt light came on and when I let it go the seatbelt light went off. While I was doing this I was seating in the passenger seat and the airbag on light came on. After I put the reciver back together the airbag light worked as it should. I had my wife sit in the seat and the airbag light still came on. Idk. I'm not sure exactly what happened. Either when I disabled the seatbelt dinging 3 months ago I messed up the airbag light somehow, never noticed it, then somehow fixed it when I took the back of the receiver off and put it back on. Or some other shit happened.....

 

Here's how to fix if you've done the seatbelt spring mod and the passenger airbag light is permanently off:
1. Disconnect the passenger seatbelt receiver.
2. Sit in the passenger seat while turning the key on to accessory mode.
3. Slide the white sliding part of the harness to the extended position while sitting in the passenger seat.
4. Once the airbag indicator light shows that the airbag is now on, cycle the white piece back to the closed position.
5. The passenger airbag light should now switch to 'off' again.

At this point the module should be reset and you're good to plug back in. Passenger airbag should function normally, while no annoying seatbelt chimes.
It seems the key is to cycle the module while there is weight on the sensor.