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Custom passenger side airbag delete panel

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Hello, here is a quick tutorial on how to make a fiberglass mold/ cover of your passenger airbag so that you can remove it permanently to save weight without having an ugly hole there and so you don't have to rip the oem cover off of a perfectly good airbag to cover the unsightly hole. This way you can save your airbag for later when you sell your car, or sell the thing on ebay to get some extra cash for other projects :)



Items needed:

-Tools to remove passenger side airbag
-Plastic bags
-Masking/ painters tape
-Fiberglass material or felt also works
-Fiberglass Resin with hardener
-Mixing bowl w/ mixing stick and paint brush
-Some latex gloves
-Heat gun (not required but speeds up the curing process)
-Sandpaper, both medium and fine grit.
-Dremel tool or heavy duty snippers
-Primer/paint or in my case carbon vinyl decal to wrap finished product vice painting it.


Step 1- Disconnect battery and let car sit for an hour (Just to be safe)

Step 2- Remove Passenger side airbag. remove glove box and you will see 2 large bolts holding the airbag in. There are write ups on this so i am not going to spend allot of time explaining how to remove it.

Step 3- Wrap bottom portion of airbag unit with plastic bag and secure with masking tape. This is just to prevent any resin and such from getting into contact with the airbag unit itself.

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Step 4- Wrap and seal the entire front of airbag with masking tape ensuring a perfect seal and no possible leakage from the resin when applied.

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Step 5- Cut several sheets of fiberglass to outline the shape of the front of airbag. Ensure to leave a little overhang so that you can mold the sides of the front panel as well.

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Step 6- This is where i say SORRY!!! because i did not take any pictures of this step since my hands were covered in fiberglass resin and didn't have anyone in the moment to snap any pics. But the next couple steps are fairly simple. Just mix the fiberglass resin and hardener in your mixing bowl as recommended by manufacturer.

Step 7- Grab your paint brush and start lathering it on a single fiberglass sheet that you already pre cut, once it is saturated... go ahead and lay a second piece of your precut fiberglass on top of that and continue to lather more resin on that piece to until completely saturated. Ensure you go all the way out to the end of the fiberglass sheet when applying the resin. as it is easier to trim than raw fiberglass that has not been hardened with resin.

Step 8- Repeat step 7 as many times as desired. 3-4 sheets would be ideal. I only could do 2 sheets as i ran out of fiberglass.... Thought i had more but i was wrong. this is why in my finished product you can slightly see the lines of the tape underneath the decal. If i would of done 4 coats of fiberglass and resin, after sanding and apllying my carbon wrap it would have been smoother than a babies behind. But it's all good, easy fix. Just need to throw a couple more layers on her, resin her up, trim, re-wrap and i'm golden.

Step 9- As it's drying/ hardening, make sure to stretch and mold the resined fiberglass around the edges and corners of the airbag so that it can encase it so to speak and you can get a perfect shaped and proportioned shell off your mold of the airbag.

Step 10- Once it is all dry and hard, just pop it off! May take a little peeling and pressure starting from one corner. But once you get her started it should pop right off, leaving the tape behind still adhered to the airbag.

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Step 11- Rough sand any imperfections off the face of the shell and dremel/ trim around the edges to get a clean and even edge all the way around, replicating the exact edge of the actual airbag face. You should end up with something that looks like this when compared to the airbag unit itself. here is a shot of the front and back of the newly created fiberglass panel.

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Step 12- Test fit to the actual car itself. ensuring proper fitment, alignment and that your edges are trimmed enough to make it sit flush like OEM. It took me several test fits and sanding with the dremel to get it fitting perfect like oem and flush. If your way off.... don't get frustrated. Try it again! this is as easy as it gets for fabricating with fiberglass so give it another whirl!

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Step 13- sand, prep and paint any color you like or wrap with a vinyl if prefered. If painting you can use body filler such as bondo for heavy imperfections if any. otherwise, a good sand should do the trick.

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Step 14- Test fit once more after you finished wrapping it or if painted, after your paint dries and can be handled.

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Step 15- Secure it to your car! There are many ways you can do this. You can use an epoxy of some sort and adhere it from the underside in a stealth fashion. Or, actual fasteners like i did. I wanted to make it removable in case i needed to get behind there for any reason. Plus i wanted to give it a little bit of a race look so i used silver screws and screwed it in place. Very secure.

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That's it! Your done! sit back and admire your work! i will probably redo mines next week as i did not put enough layers of fiberglass and that is why you can see the outline of where the tape was underneath.... grrrr, LOL. But its all good. looks better imo and saved a heck ton of weight! any questions feel free to ask. Happy motoring :)

You can also dremel out holes to hold gauges, a monitor, whatever if you dont want just a flat panel. The sky is the limit.

Oh yeah... Car doesn't start? Hook your battery back up maine!
 
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