2008 Lincoln Town Car Exe. series Seat belt light on.

[Geekster]

Hi Finally located an Airbag crash sensor switch . Picked it up from a local wrecking yard. I took the one from the right front as I did not know if it mattered left or right. Came from a 2009 Crown Victoria. O,K,. A question. Can I test the new switch with an ohm meter to see if it works? Resistance or no resistance?? Any thoughts. Thanks.

 

[Towncarlimoguy]

Hi Finally located an Airbag crash sensor switch . Picked it up from a local wrecking yard. I took the one from the right front as I did not know if it mattered left or right. Came from a 2009 Crown Victoria. O,K,. A question. Can I test the new switch with an ohm meter to see if it works? Resistance or no resistance?? Any thoughts. Thanks.

The seat belt light in my 05 came on when the passenger side retractor went bad.

 

[Geekster]

Hi, Well since nobody answered I decided to dig further on the crash sensor. I found a site that states the crash sensor has a diagnostic resistance built in to the sensor. Range is from 1.4 ohms and 4.5 ohms. States if the resistance between the wires is this the sensor is O.K. Anything lower or higher determines sensor is no good. So I connected my used sensor I bought and reads as follows
1.) Ground to pink with white stripe 1.47 meg ohms
2.) Ground to purple wire .549 meg ohms
3.) Across the connectors open.
So Scratching my head as if the used sensor is good. Anybody have experience on this??

 

[Towncarlimoguy]

Hi, Well since nobody answered I decided to dig further on the crash sensor. I found a site that states the crash sensor has a diagnostic resistance built in to the sensor. Range is from 1.4 ohms and 4.5 ohms. States if the resistance between the wires is this the sensor is O.K. Anything lower or higher determines sensor is no good. So I connected my used sensor I bought and reads as follows
1.) Ground to pink with white stripe 1.47 meg ohms
2.) Ground to purple wire .549 meg ohms
3.) Across the connectors open.
So Scratching my head as if the used sensor is good. Anybody have experience on this??

Sometimes it takes a while to get a response on here. Idk the answer. Have you tried to find a video on YouTube regarding your issue?

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[Geekster]

Hi unfortunately every crash sensor is a different design as I am seeing . Thought somebody here got into these sensors. I looked up the part number and it rings up for 05-11 Crown Vic. ,05-11Merc Grand Mar , .and 05-11 Lincoln Town car. So I know it is the correct part. But is it a good unit. Car it came from was not wrecked but air bag system could have not operated. I am an accomplished mechanic but have no experience in the Air bag system. Do not want to install this sensor and trip off the Air bags. New ones no longer available so treading softly on this. I may have to pull the one out of the Town car and measure it's resistance to compare with the used one. Will tackle this soon. Thanks.

 

[Towncarlimoguy]

Hi unfortunately every crash sensor is a different design as I am seeing . Thought somebody here got into these sensors. I looked up the part number and it rings up for 05-11 Crown Vic. ,05-11Merc Grand Mar , .and 05-11 Lincoln Town car. So I know it is the correct part. But is it a good unit. Car it came from was not wrecked but air bag system could have not operated. I am an accomplished mechanic but have no experience in the Air bag system. Do not want to install this sensor and trip off the Air bags. New ones no longer available so treading softly on this. I may have to pull the one out of the Town car and measure it's resistance to compare with the used one. Will tackle this soon. Thanks.

Are you trying to get an air bag light to go out or what exactly is the issue? I’m not a mechanic lol

 

[Geekster]

Air bag light comes on. According to code Right front crash sensor bad.

 

[Towncarlimoguy]

Air bag light comes on. According to code Right front crash sensor bad.

Well, maybe try replacing the passenger side seat belt retractor in the mean time or both retractors and see if that doesn’t clear it up. I’ve heard of the retractors going bad as mine did in my 05 but have yet to hear a sensor go bad in one.

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[Action]

If the system generates a code for diagnosis, why replace part(s) not related to the diagnosis code?

Action

 

[Towncarlimoguy]

If the system generates a code for diagnosis, why replace part(s) not related to the diagnosis code?

Action

If what you replaced already isn’t fixing it and that retractor is something that is known to go bad and cause that light to come on and is a relatively easy replacement, why not do it? Good luck anyway.

 

[Action]

......................, why not do it?

Why no??? because without diagnosing if the part is bad, there is no way of knowing if that part will fix the problem. Throwing parts at a problem is expensive.

And an electronic diagnostic trouble code is saying the problem is elsewhere. The code is a KNOWN and not a guess.

Action

 

[Geekster]

Hi all, today was the day I was able to get to the Lincoln Airbag issues. As suggested I disconnected the neg. battery terminal and waited 30 minutes to be sure nothing was powered. I removed both front crash sensors. I cleaned up ground contacts and all screws attaching sensors to the radiator support. They were all rusty from age. i rang out each sensor to see how they differed. The new (used sensor0 and the drivers side sensor read the same. the right side sensor which the code said was bad had a different reading than the other 2. So I installed the drivers side back after being cleaned and installed the replacement sensor on the right side after cleaning it up. Reconnected the battery and the airbag light now shows code 8 / 1. The code 6 / 8 is gone. Took car for a road test. Shut car off restarted car and drove a few miles. Code 8/1 is now the new error code. Will look it up from the chart you posted. And while I was there I disconnected the hood alarm switch to see if the alarm system stays off. Ironically last week at a graduation party I attended the Lincoln was there. After about 2 hours at the party the alarm system on the Lincoln went off again for no reason. my brother in law had to use his fob to stop the alarm. Very strange but hopefully with the hood switch disconnected we might solve this issue. Thanks to the forum for the help. Will report back as soon as I get more info.

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[Geekster]

I looked up this 8/1 code and as follows
States Airbag open circuit Loop 2 Front drivers side Go to pin point K. Test K . O.K. So what does this mean? I only removed both radiator support crash sensors, cleaned up drivers side one and replaced it back on. I replaced the right front crash sensor with a used one and cleaned up it's ground too. I made sure they are both grounded to the radiator support too. Any thoughts? Thanks.

 

[Towncarlimoguy]

Hi all, today was the day I was able to get to the Lincoln Airbag issues. As suggested I disconnected the neg. battery terminal and waited 30 minutes to be sure nothing was powered. I removed both front crash sensors. I cleaned up ground contacts and all screws attaching sensors to the radiator support. They were all rusty from age. i rang out each sensor to see how they differed. The new (used sensor0 and the drivers side sensor read the same. the right side sensor which the code said was bad had a different reading than the other 2. So I installed the drivers side back after being cleaned and installed the replacement sensor on the right side after cleaning it up. Reconnected the battery and the airbag light now shows code 8 / 1. The code 6 / 8 is gone. Took car for a road test. Shut car off restarted car and drove a few miles. Code 8/1 is now the new error code. Will look it up from the chart you posted. And while I was there I disconnected the hood alarm switch to see if the alarm system stays off. Ironically last week at a graduation party I attended the Lincoln was there. After about 2 hours at the party the alarm system on the Lincoln went off again for no reason. my brother in law had to use his fob to stop the alarm. Very strange but hopefully with the hood switch disconnected we might solve this issue. Thanks to the forum for the help. Will report back as soon as I get more info.

Seat sensor?

 

[Geekster]

Well possibly. My brother in law said the drivers seat broke last year. Never told me this until I found the new error code so yes might be broken and an open circuit. I am assuming I have to remove the seat to check out the seat sensor.

 

[Geekster]

And it has been now 3 days and the alarm system has not tripped off. Could be the hood switch was bad. Hopefully that issue is resolved.

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[Geekster]

Hi, back on the Lincoln town car alarm system. Alarm has not gone off for a month now with hood ajar switch un plugged and pulled. I removed it to inspect it. When at rest fully up there is continuity across both pins. When I start to depress the switch the circuit opens up so no continuity. Does this make sense? Switch number is 9C3Z-14018-A Thanks. Also drivers seat appears to have a broken spring and indentation. So assume sensors in seat are shot. Thanks.

 

[etinpa]

Yes, the continuity test results you describe are correct for a properly functioning switch.

Normally, the issue with false alarms from the hood switch are because the hood does not depress the switch far enough and some vibration or whatever moves the hood just enough that the switch completes the circuit, possibly for just a short amount of time.

Unless there is some need for the hood alarm circuit to be working, the switch can be left unplugged indefinitely with no bad effects whatsoever.

 

[Towncarlimoguy]

Mine was the passenger side seat belt retractor in an 05 I had. Bought one on eBay and no issues after that.

 

[Geekster]

Hi, Yes I was expecting the opposite operation on the switch but with the circuit it makes sense. It opens up barley by depressing it so I am going to shim the mounting plate. Brother in law wants to wait a bit as his mint 1986 Corvette power seats just failed. Factory issue and both need rebuilding. Plastic gears run the seats and they split and just give up. Looking at $1000.00 to repair both sending them out for rebuild. Will post after I shim the ajar switch and post a reply. Thank you.