Seat Occupancy sensor and air bag simulator

I replaced the front seats in the 07 4wd sport. The new seats do not have the side airbags so I needed to figure out a way to trick the computer into thinking they were present. There is a company that sells a module to do this but they are no longer available. I also had to figure out a way to trick the 4 occupancy sensors on the passenger seat. So here is what I did....

Airbags:
Got a mini blade inline fuse holder, 10 amp fuse and a 2.4 ohm resistor. Cut the plug from the seat air bag solder this all up to the plug connector.

Seat sensor:
I figured these were some sort of load transducers which turned out to be correct. First make sure and label the sensors and the wire so you put them back in the same place. I cut most of the bracket away on all four of them. This is not necessary but I wanted to make them as compact a possible so I could mount them underneath the seat. Then I took hose clamp and tightened one around each load sensors. This put enough pressure on the sensors to simulate the weight of a person thus allowing the airbag to be on. After that I drilled a hole in each sensor and mounted them underneath the seat.


It took about 1.5 hours to do all this but all is operating as normal.

Hopefully this helps anyone who wants to run aftermarket seats and retain the airbags.

 

Thanks for sharing. I’ll be tackling this soon and this is a clever solution.

 

I thought I’d add my pics and thoughts now that I’ve done it. I only needed a hose clamp on two sensors to trigger the airbag to be on. I attempted to mount them all to my seat bracket using the existing threaded hole/screw on the sensors. For whatever reason, this was causing inconsistent results with the airbag being on or off. As soon as I would unscrew one of the sensors with the hose clamp, the airbags would come back on. My theory is something to do with it grounding out.

anyways, I moved one sensor off the the side and zip tied it out of the way and for whatever reason, and now the airbag is consistently on. No complaints from me.

 

Nice I have not tried yet but are the sensors inside the seat? does the stock seat use a bladder in normal setup?

 

The sensors are in the passenger seat. It’s what holds the seat itself to the lower bracket to sense weight. I believe the bladder is only on bench seats.

 

Sweet! Glad it all worked out.

 

Why the 10 amp on the airbag along with the resister?

 

I just did it as insurance not knowing how the bypass would behave. The fuse might not be necessary.

 

@ktmrdr Hey man, I can do simple electrical. I did my own gauges, bed lights, etc. (all using simple wire taps). I know this is easy. However, I’ve never soldered or used a ohm resistor. If I were to snip my yellow airbag connectors from both seats and send them to you along with 2 inline fuse connectors, fuses, and ohm resistors.......would you be willing to do em all up for me?? I’ll shoot you some dough for your time. I just did the seat swap myself tonight. I didn’t even think about the wiring underneath prior to this. On the passenger seat, I disconnected everything and transferred over what I could......the sensors are still on the oem seats so the female plugs are under my corbeaus now unplugged. I’ll obviously have to do what you guys did and take them out and put them under my new ones with the hose clamps too.

 

Pm sent

 

What’s the black plug for? Seems like a position sensor or similar

 

To know if the seatbelt is plugged in or not

edit: maybe not. Is that the drivers or passenger side?

 

I believe I had one on the drivers side....both actually. Then the one in the passenger side in addition had the 5 or so seat pressure sensors

 

This is the drivers side. It doesn’t go to the seat belt. That’s the grey connector.

 

Then you’re correct, it’s a position sensor. Supposedly it’s so the truck knows how close your seat is to the steering wheel so it knows how quickly to deploy the steering wheel airbag. I just zip tied it under the drivers seat.

 

Yah makes sense. I’ll likely have to do something similar

 

Anyone have any idea what the black box or extra 2 wires go to on the seat belt buckle? Others only have 2 wires. I’m guessing maybe it’s the sensor for something curious what it’s for and if that could be moved to a new buckle.

Tacoma has 4 and behind that black cover is a small board.


another I was hoping to use only has 2.

 

Interesting. Is that on both sides or just one?

 

Top one is from the drivers side. The bottom one is an Audi buckle. I’ll have to check the passenger. I was expecting something funky on the passenger not the driver. I need a longer one and the Audi one clips in with the Tacoma belt bit sure the 2 extra wires and what’s in the extra part.

 

How large were the host clamps people used? Did you have to cut the pressure sensors to fit? get less space but curious if they are clamped if that really does the trick. Leaving on in each corner seems like it leaves a few mounting options. Plus can always return to stock if that ever happens (doubt it)