need srs light to turn on for 2 seconds

Hey guys, one of my customers has a 2000 Mitsubishi Eclipse that he replaced the seats on, and the new seats don't have an airbag in them so the SRS light stays on all the time.

He asked me to see if I could make the SRS light come on with the rest of the lights when he turns on the car, and then shut off when the other dash lights turn off.

I was thinking of possibly a relay with a 4 second delay, activated by the ignition wire.

Or, can I ground one of the wires on the SRS light bulb, and for the (+) signal run a small wire to it from one of the other light bulbs, like the low coolant light or the oil light bulb?

does the light on mean that the system is inactive because it senses an open circuit? if so then i'd think that finding out how the circuit is closed by the airbag and mimic it somehow would be my line of attack. hopefully activating the airbags again. if he doesn't want to do that then why not just remove the bulb for the srs. patching to another bulb would be more of an PITA in my opinion. however this would only affect inspection i would think. i assume the light is in the dash?

The light means the airbags in the seats aren't plugged in. This model has an airbag in each front seat. His original seats were all beat up so he bought some off of a base Eclipse that doesn't have an airbag in the seat. He already threw away the original seats so I can't check the original seats's resistance in the plug that goes to the SRS system.

He's already past due for the emissions test, they won't let him pass the test if any of the lights in the dash stay on. They all have to turn on when you turn the ignition on, stay lit for 2-3 seconds, then shut off. So, pretty much the light bulb has to stay in.

I've opened up the instrument clusters before on Mitsubishis to install the overlays on the gauges. It's easy to replace the bulbs too.

Would it be ok if I just wired the SRS light bulb in parralel with the "low coolant" light bulb? Would it be too much of a strain?

you would inevitably need to remove the source that lights the bulb from the error. i.e. isolating the bulb from the original circuit and patching to another bulb that works correctly. prob easiest way would be a thin plastic ring to isolate the bulb from the board. should be fairly easy if you are familiar with taking these things apart too. i wouldn't think the load would change much on the bulb since it would be a parallel circuit. that's my take on it anyway man. good luck

astrosurfer wrote:

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you would inevitably need to remove the source that lights the bulb from the error. i.e. isolating the bulb from the original circuit and patching to another bulb that works correctly. prob easiest way would be a thin plastic ring to isolate the bulb from the board. should be fairly easy if you are familiar with taking these things apart too. i wouldn't think the load would change much on the bulb since it would be a parallel circuit. that's my take on it anyway man. good luck

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Thanks....

I actually cut off the signal contact point off with a small razor. The light all share a common ground point, so I left the ground point alone and just cut off the copper colored (+)signal point. Then I got a small piece of 18g wire and wired the (+)signal contact point in parralel with the anti-lock brake light.

It worked great and took me about 2 minutes to do.