Negating passenger airbag switch

99 ext cab has the key operated airbag switch, as I believe all extended and regular cab 1st gens do.

Double cab does not have the switch, instead has the blank
55524-04010

Searched a bunch on how to negate the switch, there’s been some random threads dating back several years, nothing really answers the question.

To be clear, mine is always on, no plan to ever turn it off, it’s not a vehicle that’s going to see children riding in it while I own it which may be for a very long time.

I also have new keying for the rest of the truck, could either get the switch keyed alike or hold on to the old key, just not something I care about.

I’ve read some people have just left it in the on position and buried the switch then installed the blank plate

Anyone with electrical knowledge, is there a wiring diagram for double cans that shows how the switch is bypassed?

Ideally I’d like to remove the switch and reassemble to make it function like a double cab with the option to put it back to original if I plan to sell the truck

 

Attached is the wiring diagram for 01-04 (specifically, from an '03), which contains both the Xtra- and DoubleCab diagrams. They are - as usual - a bit of a PITA to read. See 036srs.pdf.

TL;DR - the easiest route is to bury your existing switch and leave it in the on position.

If you really want to bypass it, here's what it looks like you need to do to me...

First, look at how the Xtracab version works. According to the description,

When the passenger airbag manual on/off SW is on, the current flowing from the ACC or IGN fuse to the airbag squib (Front passenger airbag assembly) is same as above, causing the airbag squib (Front passenger airbag assembly) to expand in an accident.

If the passenger airbag manual on/off SW is turned to off, the current flows from the ACC fuse to TERMINAL 1 of the passenger airbag manual on/off indicator to TERMINAL 2 to GROUND, lighting the indicator up. Then the current between TERMINAL (B) 11 of the airbag sensor assembly and the airbag squib (Front passenger airbag assembly) is cut off, so that it does not expand the airbag squib (Front passenger airbag assembly) in an accident.

So, what that says, is when the switch is on, it is as depicted ("on paper") in the wiring diagram. Power (my blue line with arrows) comes in via 6B/IG1, goes through P-/11B (Green-White) to the switch (I've highlighted with red circle) which is ON by default, and flows through to the A21 airbag squib.



When the switch (red circle) is turned off, it flips both of those switches there (connected by dashed lines), turning the one on the left ON and the one on the right OFF. By doing that, the diagram changes to be this

• Left ON - now power is able to flow (red) all the way through the passenger ABS indicator to ground, where previously it wasn't able to.
• Right OFF - now power can no longer flow through to the A21 airbag squib, because the switch is off. As such, there's no completed circuit through the airbag squib.

Hopefully that all makes sense.

Then, here's the diagram for DoubleCab. You'll note that there's no switch at all, and the wires from A21 airbag squib just go directly to P+/10B and P-/11B directly. (Note that in the diagram, the pin order is switched, adding to the confusion!)

As such, there's no "double switch" to turn off, and there's no passenger airbag indicator to illuminate.



So, you could find the wires going to the A21 airbag squib (LG and G-R) on your Xtracab and directly connect those to the P+/10B and P-/11B pins, bypassing the switch. Doing so would ensure that the airbag was always on.

That seems like a lot of work to me though, which is why I'd just bury the switch in the dash, in the ON position.

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Oy vey, you’re right, easiest to just bury the switch. I don’t see any issues with doing so, even if it was ever necessary to disable it, it’s not a lot of work to pull the dash apart and turn it off, as long as I have the original key.