Hello all,

Started ripping into the 95 Civic EX (by VIN) Coupe and had a stumble. The Drivers side airbag has been removed so a cheap knock off **** steering wheel could be put into place. No real concerns there, no air bag to have issues with. The short connector bit looks to be for the air bag end of the wires so whatever.

What threw me off is there is a passenger side air bag and the FSM for the 92-95 Civic doesn't have ANYTHING about a passenger side airbag.

This car has been modded a bit and the steering column cover has a metal plate on the bottom cover with a large USA on it. However, I don't see how that would make a difference with the FSM as it is a USDM/CDM FSM.

Can any 5th gen experts confirm if any of the civics had passenger side air bags?

 

Passenger side airbag is a, I think, 94 and newer addition. Some of the late model 93s also have differences from the 92s and early 93s. Some 92s were wired for vtec despite lacking vtec, there's a huge list of inconsistencies by years. Or at least, there should be a list made.

My FSM doesn't say anything about the different routing of the little coolant hoses and 3 post engine mount in my late model 93 D16z6. Or my passenger side airbags in my 94 & 95 EJ2s. Maybe there's another copy of the FSM that has these details added? Or at least a supplement booklet?

 

You know, I never really thought about that before before but yeah, lots of little differences.

I guess that goes to show that the FSM for the "92-95" civic out there for download is likely a 92 or 93 version and doesn't have the updates the 94 and 95 ended up with....

My biggest concern is removal of the dash with that air bag in place.

The steering wheel had a short out connector you put on the air bag plug.

How do I go about safe guarding the dash airbag? Last thing I want to do is to accidentally deploy the airbag when I'm yanking the dash out....

Did find this thread but it doesn't give any solid info about the disabling the SRS.

 

I'm interested in that too, I want to change my heater core and I'll need to pull the dash out for that. I also want to run my vtec wires from the shock mount to the ecu along the factory harness, another reason to remove the dash.

Hopefully someone who has experience doing this procedure can chime in.

 

remove battery, disconnect yellow plug that goes to the airbag.

 

The 92-95 service manual that can be downloaded is actually the 92 Civic service manual. In some aspects, the 95 Civic is more like the 6th generation 96 Civic than the 5th generation 92 Civic. This probably holds true for the passenger airbag.

Therefore, you can probably safely follow the SRS safety instructions described for 96-98 Civics in the 96-00 Civic service manual.

 

Thanks Ron,

That seems to correlate with what eghatch9295 posted and what I found with the procedure posted here/here.

To add additional detail and information to the procedure. The FSM for the 96-00 manual explains that the passenger airbag is automatically shorted when you disconnect the plug. This would be why there is no safety short plug on the passenger side.

Thank you everyone for the feedback. I feel a bit more comfortable tackling the dash in this 95 civic.

 

***Major Update***

Turns out on the 5th gen, there IS a red short cap to be placed on the end of the air bag plug before removal on the passenger side air bag.

Unlike the 6th gen that auto shorts out when you unplug it from the harness, the 5th gen uses a red safety cap to go onto the plug before you go about removal and installing the air bags.

Once you drop the access panel it will be clipped to the housing right in front of you. If you don't see one but you see the empty white plastic housing right in the middle on the edge of the access area, do NOT attempt to remove the air bag on a 94/95 civic with passenger air bags. Either borrow the one from the steering wheel or go to the junk yard and grab one from another civic.

Cheers.

 

I already removed the dash but I snapped a pic of the safety red cap holder for the passenger side and circled it in red. If yours is empty when you open the access panel, please do not proceed to fiddle with or remove the passenger airbag.