My Airbag Wheel Replacement (attempt)

[Jon325i]

Yesterday I had some free time on my hands to tinker with the car. My wiper switch hasn't arrived yet but I decided to tear into things a bit just to see what I was up against (I've done this on my previous non-airbag E30s, but this was a first of sorts). First note: the infamous Bentley manual has nothing mentioned about airbag steering wheel removal - just the standard wheel (see Sec. 13, page 39 & 40). After disconnecting the negative lead to the battery, I used a 4mm allen wrench since I did not have the same sized torx bit for the job.....this works just as good but be careful not to strip the hardware. Once the airbag portion was freed up and unplugged, the rest of the wheel removal is much like the standard wheel. With a spare M-tech I wheel laying around I tried to see if I could make this work on my car. The main issue to address was a minor spacing gap which could be resolved with appropriate sized washers to seat it properly. Well I made this possible by sourcing up some correct size washers but had to ream out the center bore with a drill to fit the spine of the column. With that task complete I got the wheel to seat on the spline properly and tightened the gland nut to spec. Put the key in the ignition........give it a twist.......nothing. D'oh! Forgot to hook up the battery. Go to the trunk, re-connect the negative lead then try to start it again. Door chime: check. Lights on dash: check. One more click to start: nothing. If fact, everything cut out and never returned until I disconnected & reconnected the battery to reset everything. I double checked all my work to make sure nothing was overlooked. Tried starting again.....same thing would occur. I'm beginning to think that the airbag connection serves as part of the circuit to the ignition key. If its not there or disconnected, the car isn't going to start. Am I correct in assuming this or did I overlook something?

Since this discovery was made I re-installed the airbag wheel and everything with the car is fine once again.

Jon

[ak96ss]

Incorrect - the airbag circuit has nothing to do with the ignition, I've been running an M-Tech wheel on my originally-air-bag-equipped '91 318is for over a year. EDIT: I forgot to mention that I don't know why your ignition wouldn't work - you have spacers on both sides of the wheel, right - the original spacer and then the washers to enable the nut to tighten down?

[atomic]

Your problem sounds strange. I have a airbag car with a oem blackline wheel in it and everything works fine. Once I got it spaced correctly everything works perfect.

It almost sounds like your car has once had an aftermarket alarm on it and when you took the airbag off that it wasnt letting a circuit be completed for the car to start. That is just a wild guess and not even sure it is even possible but worth looking into more.

Good luck figuring it out but there should be no problem what so ever putting an aftermarket wheel or other oem wheel on it.

[Jon325i]

Incorrect - the airbag circuit has nothing to do with the ignition, I've been running an M-Tech wheel on my originally-air-bag-equipped '91 318is for over a year. EDIT: I forgot to mention that I don't know why your ignition wouldn't work - you have spacers on both sides of the wheel, right - the original spacer and then the washers to enable the nut to tighten down?

I did try mixed applications of how the spacers were used - on the front (closet to the driver), the back (furthest from the driver) and a mix of the two. In regards to the spacers used on the back only, I had very limited space to work with or else the tumbler lock would no longer engage. And no matter how I configured the spacers used, each time I attempted to start the car with the airbag disconnected, nothing would happen (hence my suspicion it might've had something to do with the way it 'might' be tied in with the ignition circuit). What is interesting about your reply is that you are dealing with a '91 318is.....someone else replied to my post (on another forum) who has the same car as you and he said swapping out the airbag wheel was no problem for him either. This has me wondering if the way the airbag wheels on 1991 E30s differ from the 318i/is to the 325i?

Jon

[atomic]

I did try mixed applications of how the spacers were used - on the front (closet to the driver), the back (furthest from the driver) and a mix of the two. In regards to the spacers used on the back only, I had very limited space to work with or else the tumbler lock would no longer engage. And no matter how I configured the spacers used, each time I attempted to start the car with the airbag disconnected, nothing would happen (hence my suspicion it might've had something to do with the way it 'might' be tied in with the ignition circuit). What is interesting about your reply is that you are dealing with a '91 318is.....someone else replied to my post (on another forum) who has the same car as you and he said swapping out the airbag wheel was no problem for him either. This has me wondering if the way the airbag wheels on 1991 E30s differ from the 318i/is to the 325i?

Jon

Thought that I would add that my car, that I swapped in a momo wheel then came across a oem blackline that is installed now, is a 1991 325i so I would tend to think there is something screwy with the wiring in your car, like someone adding an aftermarket alarm to, if at all possible and when you disconnect the air bag in makes the circuit incomplete keeping it from starting. I am just making a wild quess here but you should not have a problem putting in a aftermarket or other oem wheel in it. Although you do have to use spacers to do it it can be done for sure. I also used two of the spacers from two different non airbag cars, it is about a 1/2" long collar that is found behind the wheel on a non airbag car.

[BUDNUNTA]

I also used the factory spacer from another car.







then put that on and the original washer then nut on top.







There was no good info or pics i could find hopefully this will help everyone else.
My hub adapter was the momo 2006.




Hunter