Beware of steering wheels with blown airbags

[SnowyCamaro]

Recently i purchased a leather steering wheel out of a wrecked ss. The airbag had gone off. For me, luckily, it wasnt a big issue. Since i was upgrading my plastic steering wheel to the leather. So i already had a functioning steering wheel and airbag.

But i ran into a snag when installing mine. I installed everything, went to snap the airbag into place and it went only like halfway in and wobbled and didnt fit right. It took me 2 hrs to get the airbag back off (i was starting to panic in that time) and this is the reason why!



This is the bracket which the airbag mounts onto. This bracket floats on 3 springs and has contacts on the back of it. Allowing you to press the airbag from the outside and activate the horn. Now looking face on at the wheel i bought you couldnt see the problem until i removed this bracket and the springs from the wheel. This bracket is bent, you can see this in the picture. It should be straight.

This caused a lot of problems for me so i figured i should inform people. Incase someone runs into a similar fitment issue and is wondering why. I just took this bracket off my original wheel and installed in the new one and all my problems were solved. There are 3 torx screws and 3 springs. Takes all of 5 mins to swap out.

I guess there is some serious force behind that airbag when it fires!