I was browsing this forum looking for the answer to a question and came across this post about removing the passenger seat. Our company has a fleet of these with the seat removed so I know something about this.The information I will provide applies to the 2013 Transit and maybe other model are the same. First off Ford will never give any information on this because of liability. Imagine if they disable the airbag and later you reinstall the seat without enabling the airbags. Major lawsuit if something happens and the airbag does not deploy. You will want to do this the right way because removing the seat and driving around with the airbag warning light on is asking for trouble. My testing indicates with the warning light on the system is not operative. There is some disagreement on this point but we can't take that risk. Keep in mind airbags are dangerous if they deploy in error. The warning light is telling you to get it fixed and for your safety the system is not going to launch a bag into your face while operating the vehicle. Also remember the system is keeping a log of everything that happens including error messages. If you have an accident the cops and or insurance company can pull the data.
There are 3 components of the passenger seat airbag system. The bag itself inside the seat back, the air mat in the seat bottom and the seatbelt pretensioner. There are really 2 ways to approach this. You can remove these 3 components from the seat and reconnect them to the correct sockets. Leave this mess in the floor and drive on. The pretensioner and air mat are pretty easy to remove but you will have to destroy the seat back to get the airbag out. A much easier way to fix the problem is using resistors to trick the airbag system into thinking everything is okay. The airbag itself can be simulated using a 2.2 ohm resistor. This value is the same for all cars and all airbags that I know of. Next the seatbelt pretensioner can be simulated by a 1.5k ohm resistor. Finally the seat air mat can be simulated using 2 resistors. Funny thing is the sensor they use for this is a common GM map sensor that has been around for years. Just like manifold pressure the air mat creates pressure for the sensor. The resistor configuration I will show for this causes the correct indicator “Passenger Airbag Off” This will keep the airbag in the dash on the passenger side from deploying in a collision. If you don’t want the “Passenger Airbag Off” indicator just swap the resistors and you will have no indicators lit at all. I find it easier to cut the socket off that the air mat plugs into and solder directly to the wires. With the bag and pretensioner I cut the wires a couple inches from the brown and the yellow plugs and solder the resistors there. If you ever want to reverse this you can easily solder the wires back and replace the seat. Hope this information is not too late to help hdrider.
Seatbelt Pretensioner Disable (Brown Plug) Airbag Emulator (Yellow Plug)
---/\/\/\--- --- /\/\/\---
1.5k 2.2 ohm
Passenger Seat Air Mat Emulator
Yellow/Green Wire ---/\/\/\---o---/\/\/\---Brown/Green Wire
4.7k ^ 6.8k
^
White/Green Wire
This resistor configuration results in the proper display of the indicator “Passenger Airbag Off”
To remove the passenger airbag off message you can swap the positions of the 4.7k & 6.8k resistors
