Re: Maybe the clock spring is inductive.

When we last saw our (hero, heel, poor slob...) he (me) was slowly dis-assembling my steering column to see what had caused and airbag failure, code 21 (no or inconsistent power to airbag, driver's side).

The general culprit for this is the clock-spring, which i now have a much better appreciation of. In general, the advice is "you cant test it, just replace it". I would now debate that point, but that's a story for another day.

Having roughly zero hope that i could fix much, i have already ordered a good/used clock spring 996.652.211.00. It should be here soon.

What i did was take my airbag out, removed the steering wheel, remove the clock-spring, and cleaned everything. It all was pretty gunky and dusty, so i used air, e-parts cleaner, and then, for exposed contacts cramolin/de-oxit. I put everything back together, put the wheel on crooked, and finally, today, was able to get a box that could read and clear Porsche airbag codes.

note: about a week+ ago a local race shop used their PST2 to read and attempt to reset the code, but it re-appeared instantly. In fact think it rejected the clear.

But today, the code cleared, and the warning light went out. I turned the wheel. It stayed out. I drove home. It stayed out. I took it all apart and straightened ( i hope, its snowing out) the steering wheel. It stayed out. I think its fixed! Dirt!????

Maybe it will re-appear in a day or two. I hope not. Anyway, thanks for all the help along the way.

Grant

ps: since the clock spring seems to be no more than a coil of ribbon cable, its not clear why i could not fix it......what' the magic?

Grant

gee-lenahan-at-gee-mail-dot-com

The main difficulty with "fixing" the clockspring assembly revolves around the way the ribbon cable is wound. It's very tricky to get it wound back up exactly the way it came from the factory.

Regards, Maurice.

that it would be hard to measure the continuity since the resistance would vary as the wipers moved on the contacts.

There are no wipers or exposed contacts.

These comments are from 25-30 year old implementations. I think its all BS.

I did hear one (solid) tech say that re-coiling the ribbon is like origami. Maybe. I didnt chance it. DFWAB!

Grant

Grant

gee-lenahan-at-gee-mail-dot-com

AFAIK, airbag codes don't clear on their own. Perhaps the airbag light bulb burned out? Does it go on when you have just ignition?

Grant

gee-lenahan-at-gee-mail-dot-com