Name the connector?

[PaulM]

Ready to put seats etc back in the car but have a few connectors that were not hooked up to anything and am curious if anyone possibly knows what they would be for? Pictures obviously help here - car is a 1995 feb build originally for Canada.

Drivers footwell - any idea what the purple 3 wire connector or the 2 wire molex type are for?


Same side - red and black wires, my suspicion is they were for something aftermarket?


Last one - under drivers seat, brown wires are seat power, sheathed wires are seatbelt etc, what is the blue twisted pair for?


Thanks for any help
Paul

[zoner]

The molex connector looks like the one that goes to the ignition/key/door buzzer. Is the black plastic buzzer in the panel that you took off to access that area? Was the panel even there?

Buzzer looks like this and snaps into the panel below the dash:

[John Firestone]

The first "connector" is actually a comb terminal splice. Nearby, there should be a black plastic block with a lot of wires and similar black plastic sleeves flowing out of it. You plug the two little plastic hooks at the bottom into the block alongside its comrades. The colors match terminal X10191 in the black terminal block clipped to the left wall of the footwell.

As already noted, the natural (white) color, three pin connector and its wires likely plug into the kick panel buzzer, or what the folks in New Jersey and Munich call the "chime module" and "gong", respectively.

The twisted red/black wire pair looks non-native (aftermarket).

What are the wire colors of the other twisted pair (body color / stripe color / dot color)?

[PaulM]

Thanks - The door chime/buzzer is there but was in the rear hatch area so no problem hooking it up.

The blue wires are blue with brown stripe and blue with red stripe - hopefully that helps.

On the splice connector I found the X10191 reference in the 1998 electrical troubleshooting manual online. I'm still puzzled as the schematic seems to indicate it should affect the main dome light as well as the passenger and driver vanity mirror lights. I know the dome light was working, did not check the mirror lights - I wont hook the battery back up till the seats are in (SRS light). I'll look close at the terminal block tomorrow.

Paul

[John Firestone]

Originally Posted by PaulM

The blue wires are blue with brown stripe and blue with red stripe - hopefully that helps.

I wonder if that's for a seat belt tensioner. I get a paired of hits to that, for both colors, in the airbag section, when I search for BL/BR and BL/RT in the '98 ETM.

[PaulM]

John - I think you are on the right track. A bit more checking on the seats etc (Note that the seats were replaced by the PO, and are the sport seats but have no idea what they came out of but may have been an M3)

Drivers side - as noted on the floor
2 wires in to a 3 socket female housing connector Blue-red and blue brown
3 wires in a cable loom (into 3 pin female housing)
2X- Blue with yellow stripe and red line (long way)
1X brown and tan linear stripe in
Drivers seat
Yellow-brown and yellow-red that goes to the belt tensioner (3 pin male connector)
Connector with 3 wires (to a 4 pin male housing) which goes to the seatbelt latch

From your info It looks like the BL-R and Bl-Br goes to the yellow tensioner and the other three line cable goes to the seatbelt switch

Passenger side
3 pin white connector which goes to SRS module on bottom of seat wires Red and White, Violet and white, Brown and tan
Blue - yellow, and brown - tan linear stripe to 3 pin female housing

Passenger seat
Yellow-Re, Yellow-brown to seat tensioner as on driver seat
Matching white connector for SRS module 65 77 8 367 242
Another 3 pin connector that goes to seat belt latch as on drivers side.

I would assume the bl-y and br-t will go to the passenger tensioner (just matching # of lines).

What about the belt switch? as there is nothing visible Di I need to pull the carpeting? Might this be why the chime/gong was disconnected?

Did some more checking in the Bentley manual. It appears that 1995 cars came with the mechanical seat tensioners, Not the pyrotechnic ones in the seats that are installed. The Bentley manual looks to match the wiring I see coming out of the floor. So now the question is - is there a way to wire up the tensioners or do I leave them disconnected and look for some of the mechanical ones (which I guess have no electrical connection). Similarly can the seat belt switches be properly wired in. Looks like the driver seat should work (both 3 wires) but Bentley indicates the passenger seat would only have 2 wires on a 95 but the seat has 3 (brown, black, and grey)???


Thanks for any further assistance.
Paul

[John Firestone]

Originally Posted by PaulM

What about the belt switch? as there is nothing visible Di I need to pull the carpeting? Might this be why the chime/gong was disconnected?

Yes, there should be a connector for the seat belt buckle switch somewhere. I assume you SRS light is on, or a previous owner taped it over or removed it.

Did some more checking in the Bentley manual.

You can use the electrical drawings in the Bentley manual, but if I were in your shoes I would find a copy of the BMW NA 1995 ETM. You can go much further with the ETM and what you actually see in the car before you, than any of us can at a distance. We don't know how the car was rewired.

Is there a way to wire up the tensioners or do I leave them disconnected and look for some of the mechanical ones (which I guess have no electrical connection).

I'd try to find some mechanical tensioners as you probably need a later airbag controller for the pyrotechnical ones or need to recode your present one.

Looks like the driver seat should work (both 3 wires) but Bentley indicates the passenger seat would only have 2 wires on a 95 but the seat has 3 (brown, black, and grey)???

The surest way to answer that question is to compare the drawing in the 1998 ETM to the one in the 1995 ETM. Bentley did a great service condensing all the different years into one set of diagrams, which works if you are dealing with a bone stock car. You have a multiyear mongrel, however, and need to see the differences between years – before Bentley condensed them.

[PaulM]

Thanks again John,

Looks to me like the best solution will be to see if I can come up with the mechanical tensioners, which should also have the correct pinouts for the buckle switches.

In the meantime I will do as suggested and see if I can find the 1995 ETM and compare to the later ETM to see if I can at least wire the seat buckles appropriately.

Paul

On further review of 95-98 ETM's (the 95 ETM does not include any diagrams of the buckle switch?) the three leads on the belt switch allow the belt warning light to go on - but - it is only hooked to the drivers seat (all years). Looks like they wire the switches the same on both buckle assy to account for different markets. So it should be relatively easy to get the connectors wired up appropriately (time to get out the multimeter). Long term solution still looks to get appropriate tensioners at some point (anyone want to swap?).

Paul

[John Firestone]

Originally Posted by PaulM

On further review of 95-98 ETM's (the 95 ETM does not include any diagrams of the buckle switch?) the three leads on the belt switch allow the belt warning light to go on - but - it is only hooked to the drivers seat (all years).

I'm looking at the 12/95 US ETM, Supplementary Restraint System (Air Bag), sheet 3234.0-00. It shows both seat belt switches at the lower right.

Those switches are troublesome as explained in BMW NA service bulletin 72 04 96.

[PaulM]

John - your good.

I used the downloads from wedophones
http://wedophones.com/BMWManualsLead.htm

the 1995 318ti manual does not show the switches on the page you list, BUT the 1995 3181-s-c... does show it (go figure). Also these older pdf's do not seem to be searchable

you would not happen to know what the resistance should read on the normally open lead of the switch? The schematc shows one path - switch open no buckle - which is used on the drivers side, and the other pole indicates a path with 2 resistors in series. No values are given.

Just figuring if I can confirm the switches operation - maybe - the SRS light will be ok (in advance of putting in propper tensioners).

Paul

[John Firestone]

I believe the numbers are 400 ohms unbuckled and 100 ohms buckled.

[PaulM]

Just a detail for others as it was not obvious to me - the "comb splice terminal" is not a connector, as the name implies it connects multiple wires together - it does not pick up power from the block, which is really just a holder. Figured this might help someone else out as I was trying to figure which way to plug it in and on inspection with a mirror I could tell the black plastic block is a holder.

Paul

[John Firestone]

BMW actually translated "Kammverbinder" as "fan connector" which is pretty confusing. A comb terminal strip for splicing wires together is how I would describe it.

Earlier I should have made clear that terminal X10191 is just the number assigned to the metal comb with the spliced together wires. The comb, inside its black sleeve, could hang down (or poke up) anywhere in the plastic block.