Hi…hoping someone can help. Newbie to MX5 ownerahip amd have been prepping one for track days this year bur cant seem to get the airbag light to stop flashing? Have tried 3.3ohm resistors in the airbag plug and also in the seat plugs but nothing works?
It has
What’s the flash code? How many long flashes and how many short flashes?
To be fair i didn’t check that…doh!! Will have a look in morning and come back to you lol…what a dope!
Right here goes…
1 x long flash…1 x short…1 x long…2 x short…6 x short…
Hhmm, could be 11, 12 & 06. Do they repeat the same sequence, 11 & 12 are seat belt pretensioner codes. 6 is drivers side air bag.
Yeah its a repeating code…has race seats and aftermarket wheel in it so those would make sense.
The pre-tensioners are in the seat belt reels, have you disturbed those? Changing the steering wheel potentially accounts for code 6. Did you set the clock spring up correctly? Did you check that it was centred before fitting the new steering wheel?
The seats and wheel were in when i bought the car as a project toy so not sure. Pretty certain the seatbelt reels have been removed completely. Didn’t see them when i stripped it down to paint it.
Missing reels will explain those codes then. My next check is would be to check the actual presence of the clock spring, then with it disconnected at both sides check continuity though it. Is the car not going to be used on road? If not, it’ll probably be easier just to take the air bag light bulb out.
No real plans to be anything other than a track car…but i would a till like to mot it yearly for peace of mind etc and to cover ‘just in case’
I can try to reset clock spring etc when i fit a new wheel…would connecting it to the abs light cure it? Have heard a few stories about doing that?
Not going to get into discussion about cheating the MOT system on an internet forum… But I don’t think that an inoperative air bag light is an MOT failure. The failure item is that it indicates a fault.
From the MOT inspection manual:
“The SRS MIL (Malfunction Indicator Lamp) should only be failed if it is indicating a system malfunction.”
Nothing there about it being inoperative but different testers opinions may vary.
With regards the clock spring, if it’s not been set up correctly initially, resetting it now won’t help, the damage could already have been done. Basically it only has about 2 rotations in each direction so it it was set one rotation out it would have 3 rotations in one direction and only 1 rotation in the other. When the steering wheel is rotated more than the 1 rotation the clock spring will become damaged.
I don’t think the steering wheel would have been fitted as wrong as it seemed a pretty well looked after solid car when we picked it up
Does the horn work? That runs through the clock spring as well. Have you got a photo of how you connected the resistor?
Will take a pic later. They didn’t connect a horn button …as i found the horn wire beneath column when i was looking for airbag port…i just tried slotting the resistor prongs straight into the port
The resistor seems to stop the 6 flash fault but cant stop the 11 or 12…
If the seat belt reels are missing, you’ll need resistors in those redundant plugs too. Try the same resistance.
Just tried those and still get 11 and 12 flashing 
Have you got any more resistors? Try 2 ohms.
2.2 ones seem to have cured it!! For now…lol. thanks so much for all your help! 
