ARB and Air Bags (1 Viewer)

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Montana Cruiser

Montana Cruiser

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After doing some research on ARB front bumpers using the trusty search engine ::) I ran across some posts stating that the ARB would effect the airbags. What the posts didnt elaborate on was how it would effect them ??? One of the reasons I was happy I got the 97 was the dual air bags, I have eatn' steering wheel in an accident before and it doesnt taste good! :mad:I wouldnt want to render them useless but I also want an ARB. Anyone have any insight?
 
iirc, the ruling was that the ARB would make your airbags deploy sooner than they would have if you had the stock bumper, all other things being equal. That's because your stock bumper is going to crumple, then your front end will start to crumple, then your truck will get jarred so hard that it causes the sensor in the middle of your truck to shift enough to deploy the airbags. With the ARB, you skip a lot of the bumper and front end crumpling, and proceed more directly to the jarring of the frame, which in turn should trigger the airbags.

At least that's the understanding I got when I asked this question before.. that and that no one could recall of anyone's airbags deploying while wheeling, even when whacking the front bumper pretty hard. Someone will no doubt correct me if I'm wrong, hth..
 
I think that for safety's sake it would be a smart idea to pull the SRS fuse before serious wheeling. Airbag's deploying at low speed could be dangerous if leaning over the wheel or forward to see where you are going.
 
Uhhhhh,
We went over this before but there is no evidence of anyone ever having a deployment due to the arb on. Eric is right in that theoritically it could chagne the physics involved but no one knows for sure. Fact is there are a lot of guys with arb and slee bars and air bags and they do not go off when A shopping cart hits it.
as far as removing the fuse I would not recomend that. just cause you are wheeling does not mean you do not want the added driver and passenger protection that the airbag can bring you. You also have added cycles to the airbag ecu that way and I am not sure you want to be playing with that when away from civilizatio and wheeling.
Dave
 
I too wouldn't want to be messing with the relay or fuse that controls the air bags. The more you mess with electrical stuff the more likely it is to screw it up.
 
[quote author=Doc link=board=2;threadid=16153;start=msg154564#msg154564 date=1084301763]
I think that for safety's sake it would be a smart idea to pull the SRS fuse before serious wheeling. Airbag's deploying at low speed could be dangerous if leaning over the wheel or forward to see where you are going.
[/quote]

I thought, this is going to go on memory, that the preferred method was not to remove the fuse but to disconnect the connector on the wiring to the airbags. Also, I am sure that this proceedure whether it is a fuse or a connector should be done with the vehicle off, key out of ignition. Another reason that airbags deploying while wheeling would be bad is that, again this is going to go on memory, the computer will totally disable the vehicle after the airbags are deployed. But, basically as I remember, no one, not even cdan knows of any airbags deploying while wheeling even after a good smack with an ARB and a rock! HTH.
 
that was me that stated that if they deploy it will shut down the ecu. I think the risk there is marginal. heres the cliff notes version. you must be exceeding above 15 mph if memory serves and hit with enough severity to trigger multiple bag sensors in order to cause a firing of the bags. There was talk of using the pass airbag disable style switch from a taco and wiring it into the circuits. I think this is overkill and not really worth the effort for so minimal a risk. plus who is to say that if you hit hard enough to hit the parameters that you dont want them to fire. I dont have bags on my truck but if I did I would leave them be.
Dave
 
Oh lawdy...

The net result is that no matter how the impact gets transfered to the frame, if it is stong enough to set off the airbags, it's impacting YOU enough for the airbags to be beneficial. If the bumper crumples or is solid concrete doesn't matter a bit where it matters-the mass of your ass!

There's a really long winded and meandering diatribe somewhere in an old post...from me...but that's about all there is too it!
 
Its my understanding the air bags fire in response to rapid deceleration not a simple bump or jarring. It would require a rapid drop in speed from a high velocity (greater than you would ever have off road) to set them off. Thats what I understand anyway.
 
>> Thats what I understand anyway. <<

And you understand correctly. Don't mess with the air bags on the 80 series cruiser. They are designed to do their job based on vehicle speed and decelleration. If they deploy while on or off-road you will be very glad they did.... hopefully nobody on this list will ever have to validate that statement.

-B-
 
interestingly, you may know that on the real man -and woman's- LCs :D :-X- there is a switch to disconnect the curtain air bags when you are offroading...
:D
E
 
If I am not mistaken, didn't ARB design crush zones to accomdate airbags?
 
no crush zones that resemble anything on toyota or honda or ford or chevy..........
lets just say if there are crsh zones on it they camoflaged them preetty well. I am fairly certian they did not. a crush zone is generally when a peice of structural steel will have ripples in it to allow it to kink in a controlled manner. no rippling on my arb at least. if this is kind of unclear I could shoot some photos of the crush zones on a car at work tomorrow.
Dave
 
I think it is TJM that advertised that their bull bars are airbag compatible, never heard ARB advertise that.
 
Dan, i do remember reading in one of the ARB brochures about crumple or crunch zones. I beleive it is on some of the more "yuppy" models. THe one's that are painted to match the color of your vehicle, and just have lights without accepting a winch. But i do remember these in the brochure.
 
CJ, I think you are right that they advertise the airbag compatability and/or the airbag crunch zone on their brush guards and bumper guards etc, like you wrote, the "yuppie" bars. However, they do not, as far as I know, advertise that with any bullbar whether it is winch or non-winch. TJM on the other hand does advertise that their bullbars are CAD designed to work with the airbags. I have a TJM on my runner. I wanted ARB but they did not make a bullbar for the 86-95 IFS trucks so I went with the TJM. The look of the bar is similar to the ARB on my 80 but the mounting system is much different...the TJM mounts hang down much lower and would wreak havoc off road on rocks and such. Still seems sorta silly to advertise airbag compatability on an 88 4Runner bumper since the 88's had no airbags!?! ??? I think they are just saying that on vehicles with airbags, the bumper will not affect the proper operation of the airbag, they are not engineering in crunch zones within the bullbar as far as I know; it would be really hard to properly engineer a bullbar that can withstand impact with animals, pull a 10K or more winch, etc, AND still crunch properly. I think they just make sure that the bullbar does not prevent the airbag from deploying and that it does not prematurely deploy the airbag either. Still do not think that the bullbars have crunch zones. I once saw a bumper sticker on the front of someone's bullbar and it read, " Your Car Is My Crunch Zone"!
 
[quote author=concretejungle link=board=2;threadid=16153;start=msg155155#msg155155 date=1084364764]
Dan, i do remember reading in one of the ARB brochures about crumple or crunch zones. I beleive it is on some of the more "yuppy" models. THe one's that are painted to match the color of your vehicle, and just have lights without accepting a winch. But i do remember these in the brochure.
[/quote]Well here's my ARB winch frame, not a yuppy one, and you can clearly see the crumple zone, they may not be available pre 2000 or somewhere there? you would have to check with ARB
 
Not to sound too skeptical but one inch of crumple? How much will that help compared to the entire engine bay being designed to crumple?
 
Let me rephrase that, clearly any crumple will help so sorry about neglecting that fact, and, possibly with the thicker steel that makes up that crumple zone, it may take the same amount of energy to crunch that as it would to crunch several inches of regular sheetmetal, radiator support etc. I probably wrote too soon but still I think that the main consideration is that anytime you put a solid sturdy bullbar on a vehicle, you can expect a pretty solid, sturdy impact, and, as B wrote, energy is energy and its gotta go somewhere (other than the passenger compartment hopefully)!
 
And, let me add that, after second and third looks, it looks like with that particular ARB crumple zone, I'd be willing to bet that the one to three inches that looks like it can crumple are designed to absorb some amount of energy but also to stop the bullbar from ramming the radiator and fan and other essentials; think about it, out in the outback, you slam a large animal enough to use some of that crumple zone, the bumper is bent back in BUT the fan still works, the rad works, etc. That can make the difference between life and death in terms of getting stranded somewhere in the middle of nowhere and nowhere! Perhaps I was too skeptical, perhpas I should rely on ARB engineering to solve the potential problems!!! :-[
 
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