Guys will the Au horn fit an el steering wheel? will horn work and air bag too? Anyone done this?

IT should work as the wheel is the same and interchangable from EF to AU...

um i wouldnt go for it yet as AU uses smartshield not smartlock and has duel airbags (not single) so i wouldnt be sure that the airbag would work...

Cheers Cam

au one uses smartlock but that is neither here nor there... the pad itself is the same if not f**k if i can spot the different

From what I understand (from other people), the horn switch is different, and the actual airbag plug is dfferent. I am currently looking into this myself (as I prefer the look of the AU airbag), and I am looking at these 2 possible solutions:
*altering the EL plug to attack to the AU airbag - This issue with this is that the airbag system works off resistance, so you cannot simply cut off the EL plug and solder in the AU one. You would need to solder for the horn though.
*Using the AU clock spring. to achieve this, you would also need to be using the AU Cruise switches (with the on/off on the blinker stalk).

I have only had a quick look into this, and will be experimenting when my EF runs out of rego next month (as I will be wrecking it).


As has been mentioned before, AU1 has smartlock. All EF2/EL's were wired for dual airbags (my EL ghia has dual airbags), but you only had the hole in the dash if your car had it optioned up. If you did not get the PAB, ford simply used a resistor on the PAB plug, to prevent it from generating fault codes

Any progress on this, just picked up a AU leather wheel with air bag, cruise buttons, clock spring and want ot fit it to my EF wagon. On the clock spring the wires go into connectors on either side sealed by a rivet, would it be as easy as opening these connectors and soldering in the appropriate wires/plugs. As a carpenter I may be seeing this in a very simplistic and wrong way, but I thought I would throw it up there any way.

I haven't gone anywhere on this. I am a bit broke at the moment. You are not able to use any solder in the wiring, as the airbag circuit woeks off resistance. soldering wires may generate fault codes, and my even cause the airbag to go off.
When I get the money (will be soon), I will look at this again. I am working on other (cheaper) projects at the moment.

I have an update on this. But not much of one...

I have totally pulled the steering column of my EF apart, and have also had a look at the way it is on my dad's AU1.
The clock springs should be interchangeable between the EF and the AU. The AU had the same plugs at the base of the steering column for the airbag and the cruise switches. The only thing that is different is that on the cruise plug, the EF has 3 wires. The AU plug is the same plug, and these 3 wires are in the same pin, and there are the same colours at each end of the plug as is o my EF. There was one difference - The AU has one extra wire. I am not too sure what this is for, but I am confident that this may be related to the radio controls.
The on/off switch for the cruise control (that is mounted on the blinker stalk) does not go through the clock spring. The wires that go from this switch then go through a piece of rubber tubing along with the entire combination switch wiring all the way down the steering column, and then I lose them under the dash.
I am not game enough to pull my dad's AU apart (while I don't care too much for my EF, as it is my parts car) so I might rip a car apart next time I am at pick and payless. All I need to do is to cut the piece of rubber, and see where these 2 wires link to the cruise control wiring harness, and eventually to the cruise control unit.

This would be easier if I had an AU workshop manual...or at least the wiring diagrams out of one.

Yeah I fitted my AU wheel on the weekend and found the same thing with the extra wire in the grey plug. In the end I just refitted the EF air bag just to be safe. As you say, further investigation of the AU wiring is needed keep us posted.

I spent a few hours looking at this last night. Thanks to another ford site, I went over the wiring diagram, and then compared it to my EL Wiring. If you do not have cruise control, all you will need to do is fit an AU clock spring. You will see that there would be one extra wire, which is a red one. This one goes to the custer, and is for the radio controls.

If you have cruise control, you can still fit the AU clock spring, but you will also need the cruise/radio switches, and the blinker stalk. I am pretty sure that you can run the wires from the blinker stalk (there are 3 wires for the on/off switch), and these can be the tepped cruise plug at the bottom of the steering column.

The wiring colours, position of the wires and the plug appears to be the same on both cars for the airbag itself, which is a seperate plug to the cruise control.

I bought a black AU air bag off ebay. It fits fine onto my EF no dramas. The horn works, etc. The issue is the wiring loom for what I assume is the air bag.
The AU bag has a red two pin connector, while my EF air bag has a black three pin connector (although it only has 2 wires running to it).

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My car is originally a GLi and so doesn't have either cruise control or radio controls.

Any ideas on what I can do?
I assume I can just cut the wiring connector off both bags and swap them over. Just need to know which wire is which.
The AU has 2 red wires with black stripe (i.e. both wires are the same colour - how am I ment to know what each does?), while the EF has a red wire and grey with orange stripe.

I'm sure this has been done many times before by members on here. I remember fusion or someone talking about it years ago.

BTW - what is a clock spring?

That red connector on the AU airbag is for your horn, not the airbag. The AU uses the whole front pad for it's horn. I suppose that mounting the standard EF/EL horn switched behind the AU airbag would work, but the horn would only work if you press down where the pads are (just like on the EF/EL) The Airbag plug is the small 2 pin socket in the middle of your airbag photo.
That red plug is for the horn. As for which wire is which, I ddon't think that it matters, as all the switch does is close the circuit.

If you don't have cruise control, you would get away with an AU clock spring, as the airbag connector at the bottom of the steering column is the same.

My ghia has cruise control, and I am wanting to keep this feature, which is why I am investigating the wiring end to end.

I don't think I ever used the cruise control on my AU (I'm not well travelled), but from what I can remember all the blinker stalk did was activate it - so just wondering if anyone who does this can just run the appropriate wire/s to a simple momentary or on/off switch to activate the cruise rather than swap the blinker stalk over. Just a thought.

I use my cruise control all the time. The on/off switch for the EF/EL is on the steering wheel, where the AU has the radio controls (on the left hand side of the steering wheel).
I will be using the AU blinker lever, as I want it to look factory. I feel that I have enough knowledge to attempt to change everything over - I just need the $$$ for the required parts, which should be on payday next week.

While I am at it... I am also looking into making the Audio controls work. The Audio controls will be the easiest (but most expensive) part.

Last edited by Ballast on Wed Oct 08, 2008 6:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Whats a clock spring?