[erictsunami]

I put different seats in my 2003 ZX3. I want to permanently make the car think there's someone seated with their seatbelt on in both front seats. The wiring harness is different because these are seats from an older car. I don't really want to spend any money on it. I cut the harness off the driver side and tried to twist the wires together, but that didn't work. Any ideas?

 

[02fordsvt]

To get the seat belts and airbags to work properly (and turn off the warning light) you'll need to use the seat belts and all seat sensors from your old seats or at least a set of belts and sensors from a same model year car. Different model year belt systems do not transfer between car because every year uses different systems that must match. The whole system has to be reading properly or it will turn off all airbags for safety reasons so nothing goes off at the wrong time or with the wrong amount of force.

This also means that more than likely you won't be able to cheat the system into thinking the seats are always occupied. The only way I can guess would be to find the actual weight sensor and see if you can weight that down permanently. However, I would not recommend messing around with any of these systems and keep them at OEM specs for yours and your passengers safety.

 

[sailor]

Moved to MkI Interior section

You can find some prev. threads here as well as fresh answers.

 

[mainest]

[welcome] to FF! I believe that the Focus didn't have a passenger seat weight sensor until the '05 model year. My '05 ST had one, my '04 SVT doesn't. I have seen for sale, on line, the male portion of the seat belt buckle. You could also get an original version from a salvage yard, probably for less. Either one should "fool" the passenger side air bag into deploying in a frontal collision, although I don't know why you would want that to happen.
My experience with Foci SRS confirms what Bryan says about Foci SRS components being model year specific. I also agree with him that it will be best to return your SRS to OEM specs, as your auto insurance carrier would likely not pay for any collision injuries, and would certainly cancel your policy were they to discover that your SRS was inoperative. Good luck.

 

[erictsunami]

Thanks.
Unfortunately, the driver's seat is destroyed beyond repair. This was not an intentional mod. I'd rather have all original parts. I still have both front seats and components. The passenger seat is structurally fine, but I switched both front seats so they'd match. I cut pieces of angle iron and threaded holes for brackets to fit the new seats, which are just lightly used seats from a yard car that someone found when they mowed their lawn.

 

[02fordsvt]

Hahahaha. Found the car when they mowed the lawn? Sounds a little red neck to me.

All you'll need from the original seats are the buckle catches and the wires/plugs that run through the seats. Nothing structural needs to be replaced on the new seats. When I replaced the seats on my car, it only took about 5 minutes to swap everything over to the new seats so it's not a very hard job to do once you figure out the first one.