Out of nowhere I started getting airbag code 6: 6 flashes of airbag light, “damaged airbag module or poor connection of clock spring connector.”

The fault turned out to be the self-shorting mechanism on the clockspring connector. The shorting mechanism was not lifting properly and removing the short, when the connectors were connected together. This took me some trouble to diagnose and fix and I didn't really see anything on our site about something like this.

Some of the connectors in the airbag system have self-shorting connectors. Other cars have them too, but I had never heard of these. They are designed to short-circuit together the two wires in the connector when it is unhooked from its mating connector. If a voltage was somehow applied across the two terminals of the connector, while it was unhooked, any current would flow through the self-shorting mechanism and not the airbag. This seems to be designed to provide some protection against accidental deployment. There are at least two of these type connectors in the system. One of these is on the connector to the airbag module, that is, the airbag itself. Another is on the clock spring connector which mates with the connector having the wiring going to the diagnostic module. If a connector having a self-short mechanism is unhooked from its mate, the shorting mechanism shorts the wires that still have a complete electrical connection to the airbag.




The first pic shows the connector with the self-shorting mechanism. The way the connector is positioned in the pic, the shorting mechanism can be seen below the female terminals. The mating connector is designed to lift the self-shorting connector off of the two female terminals when the two connectors are connected together. The second pic shows the mating connector. Under its two male terminals are the lifting parts designed to lift up the shorting mechanism. There is a plastic, straight, pin looking part, which in my case is frayed on the end. Under it is the larger plastic part, which seems to do the actual lifting.

I suspect the straight, pin piece may only be there to aid diagnosis. It seems to fit between the terminals and the shorting mechanism when the shorting mechanism if lifted. If the shorting part is not lifted, it looks like it would jam into it. That’s how I eventually found the problem. The pin was bent when I unhooked the connector. I straightened it out, and pried on the piece below it to help make sure that piece would lift when hooked back up. The airbag light went out, but came back on with the same code after about 1 week. When I unhooked the connector again it looked like the pin was straight but frayed on the end. It suppose it could have slipped between the two arms of the shorting mechanism. In this case, I think the shorting mechanism was held up high enough for a while and then came back down, causing a short, even with the connectors connected, and the code to reappear.

The really strange thing is that I have owned my FD for 10 years. In all that time, I have not unhooked this connector, or ever given custody of my FD to anyone else. I don’t know if this connector has ever been unhooked. I suspect that the lifting part never really lifted the shorting mechanism as high as was designed, causing the pin on the other connector to bend but that for years it was held up just enough not to short. At some point, it came down the rest of the way, shorted, and caused the code.

I tried to fix the problem by inserting a piece of plastic between the shorting mechanism and the tops of the terminals, but I thought the pin piece might dislodge it when the connectors were reconnected. I didn’t see any good way to cut off the pin piece down in the connector housing. I tried to get a small piece of electrical tape in there between the terminals and the shorting arms, but was not able. Finally, with the end of a curved pick, I hooked onto each of the shorting arms and ripped them out one at a time. Being, I guess spring steel, but thin, they were brittle and were easy to break off. I just put a big label on the wiring with wide masking tape and a sharpie, “self-short removed.”

 

Interesting! Glad you sorted that out!

That makes a lot of sense having the self-shorting connectors.

Dale

 

Thanks Dale. It was sort of difficult getting to the conclusion that it was a connector. When I first unhooked them, i just looked down in there and thought, what is all that stuff?

Also, the code came up right after I installed my PFC. Just a coincidence, but we are all inclined to think that what we were just working on somehow caused the problem. Usually the case, but not this time.