I know it's been a while since I've been on here - it's actually been a while since i've had the car - back in Aug, the tranny literally exploded - and it's been back and forth tot he trans shop several times since then, getting issues worked out.

Now, on to the issue - 1998 GLE - had fully leather with the side impact curtain bags, etc... well, the leather on ALL seats was shot to hell.. Driver seat had much of the foam missing... I had been watching and looking for a good set of seats to come available - and finally found a good set of cloth seats from a 98 SE - obviously no side air bags.

Question is, now that I have seats without side air bags, should I get the air bag computer from the same donor car? It's marker a 98, but could be a 99... would that make any difference? Would my existing harness plug into the other air bag computer?

 

A few years ago my 99 I30 leather seats were worn out. I found an exceptional deal on a set of tan leather seats from a 97 Maxima without the seat side air bags. First I tried swapping the SRS control unit. Possibly because my I30 is a 99 model and the donor car was a 97 there may have been some circuit incompatibility by design. I could not get the SRSCU from the 97 model to work with the 99 model. However, I learned there is a trick known to many Z car owners who swap original seats (with air bags) for racing seats. Basically they cut the plug on the seat side of the plug receptacle and solder in a resistor that matches the Ohm resistance the SRS unit is expecting from the seat unit. I first tried using the 4.7 Ohm resistor that Z car owners use without success.

To find the correct resistor for the I30, I used my Ohm meter and got a reading for the from seat electronics at 2.2 Ohms. Since it was not a resistor that I could get at Radio Shack, I ordered a resistor from an internet electronics company in California and soldered it into the plug receptacle that I had cut from the old seat.

You can use your multi-meter and measure the line resistance for the seat SRS unit to verify the correct resistor to purchase.

After I installed the resistor, I followed the SRS reset (7 door switch taps in 5 seconds) procedure to reset and clear the SRS light that I had tripped a few days earlier by using the incorrect resistor.

Any SRS modifications should be strictly based on your personal decision and not on my recommendation or prior experience.

Here's a night picture, with shadows, of the plug modification I made to use seats from an earlier model Maxima.

 

Well, I can see if I can find that connector on the old seats, as I still have them for a short time... however, some of the connectors would not release when pulling the old seats so the wires and ends were cut off...

 

There are different air bag sensors under the console. There is one for no side air bags that has one wire harness connector and one for side air bags that has 2 wire harness connectors.

Looking in the parts book, there are different part numbers for the 98 and 99 models. No information on what the difference might be.