Yet Another Newbie....

[OldsMike]

Greetings Aurorans,

I'm the proud new owner of a 1999 Aurora. It is the 7th Oldsmobile to grace our Oldsmobile Stables here in SE Michigan. My '99 is in Diamond White, has the Sunroof, the Autobahn package and 34,000 miles. This is my first Aurora and it is a thrill to drive.

I have several other Oldsmobiles. Here is a link to see some of them:
www.cardomain.com/member_pages/view_page.pl?page_id=407873

A little about me:
I'm a long time member of the OCA and past President of the Motor City Rockets, the first local chapter to the OCA. I love Oldsmobile Performance as you can tell by visiting the site above. I work in automotive as a Air Bag Engineer, been married to my bride since 1984 and GOD has given us one son (11).

Thanks for reading and intend to add to the commentary to ACNA.

[stevensolds]

Welcome aboard!

WOW only 34k i would love to have that on my car.

[Letitroll98]

Welcome OldsMike, a true handle for a real Olds enthusiast. Your expertise and Olds knowledge will be most welcome I'm sure.

But I have another question. Why do deployed air bags stink so aweful? The nasty chemical smell renders the interior unlivable right after the accident. What do they put in those things? (I guess I should ask what do you put in those things?) ;D

[erw38]

First and foremost, Weicome to the club!

I checked your cardomain site and must say that you have some beautiful cars there. I am not craze about station wagons, but from the looks of it it sure looks like it hauls some ass. As for your other to cars on that site, they are gorgeous cars that I would love to be able to drive and play around with. I am sure that you are enjoying them.

Now to the reason that your here, your Aurora. It sounds like a beauty. I am not a huge fan a white cars, but the diamond white paint looks just spectacular. I bet it looks better in person, but don't know that for a fact because I have not seen one in person yet. I have to say that you are immensly luck to have only 34,000 miles on a car that was brand new six years ago.

I am glad that you found us and hope that you enjoy our little site. I'm sure that you can help us out a lot with your technical expertise because I'm sure that you will be asked many questions here (most likely by me). Well, I hope you find this forum and the members that we have helpful and extremely nice (because I do). Again, we are glad to have you here.

Welcome to the club!

[DaHamma]

Welcome to the club. Nice find on your Aurora.
The 442 will be kick ass when you get it done. Best of luck to ya!

[Mr. Javi]

Welcome aboard 1999 Aurora owner,

Thought I let you know, I'm putting together a Custom Indiglo Gauges pre-order for the Classic Aurora.

You can find more detailed information at the website below.

www.speedhut.com/15orders_el_detail.asp?auto_number=75&bhcp=1

No one else in the web or internet has them available for the Classic Aurora, so we in the pre-order would be the very first people to own a set of these gauges.



Thanks,
Javi.

[w3rk5]

Hi OldsMike and welcome. I remember looking at your cardomain page not too long ago. I think that car is very kewl. Especially what you've done to it. For my next car I'd really like to get one of those. I hear you can put a 4x8 sheet in there. Is this true?

[OldsMike]

Letitroll98 said:

Welcome OldsMike, a true handle for a real Olds enthusiast. Your expertise and Olds knowledge will be most welcome I'm sure.

But I have another question. Why do deployed air bags stink so aweful? The nasty chemical smell renders the interior unlivable right after the accident. What do they put in those things? (I guess I should ask what do you put in those things?) ;D

Thank You all for the warm welcome!

Regarding your question regarding airbags. The device that fills the airbag is called a inflator. The inflator is a engineered bottle that stores the compressed gas(s) and the ignition device (s). Early generation inflators used pyrotechnic ignition devices. In laymans terms, explosive. This created a very hot deployment of gas with lots of particulate (called effluent). The effluent and some of the gas's are what you smell. Fortunetly, technology tends to get better w/age and there are "cold gas" inflators which do not have any pyrotechnic. There is still a mix of the two technologies out there but I think that the cold gas will continue to gain ground over its pyro brethren. The smell should dissipate over a small amount of time and a good washing of the interior surface should help remove those smells in short order.

[OldsMike]

w3rk5 said:

Hi OldsMike and welcome. I remember looking at your cardomain page not too long ago. I think that car is very kewl. Especially what you've done to it. For my next car I'd really like to get one of those. I hear you can put a 4x8 sheet in there. Is this true?

Thank you for the compliments!

Yes, you can put a 4x8 sheet back there. They are pretty cheap to buy and will accept small block and big block Olds V8's w/no problem. Finding a rust free example with a good interior gets harder with every passing year. Then again, a month ago I didn't think I'd be buying a Aurora with 34K miles.

[scottydl]

Javi said:

Welcome aboard 1999 Aurora owner

Yay, another '99er! An Olds enthusiast too, an airbag engineer, and is not afraid to mention God... who could ask for anything more? ;D Seriously, welcome to the forum Mike; I know you will have a lot to offer. Love the wagon!!

[Letitroll98]

OldsMike said:

This created a very hot deployment of gas with lots of particulate (called effluent). The effluent and some of the gas's are what you smell.

Yes Godfrey Daniel, there was a lot of effluent! Most of it in my draws. ;D This was an accident some number of years ago in a 1993 Concorde. I didn't keep the car so no need for cleanup or knowledge of how long the smell stuck around. Thanks for the answer. I was, however, looking for the exact chemical(s) used in the reaction bottle. And/or any desecant or lubricating powders used outside the airbag itself. I'm a total dumbell as most members here will attest, but I have a GF who is a chemist by trade and she could decipher this answer down to my elementry school level.

[OldsMike]

Letitroll98 said:

Yes Godfrey Daniel, there was a lot of effluent! Most of it in my draws. ;D This was an accident some number of years ago in a 1993 Concorde. I was, however, looking for the exact chemical(s) used in the reaction bottle. And/or any desecant or lubricating powders used outside the airbag itself.

I'm sure that in 1993 that would have been a Pyro inflator, these things can have a variety of off-gasses so telling exactly what is in it is near impossible unless we knew the manufacturer. As far as any powder is concerned, several companies use talc (baby powder) to aid in rolling the bag up. The motor companies have a measurement for the total air volume in the vehicle and then divide by the number of inflators going off which give off gasses. As long as the total doesn't exceed their "safe limit" then everything is OK. Keep in mind, almost always, windows break during the accident event so fresh air is almost immediatly available.

Today, there are lots of inflators going off in the car. There are two frontal bags, a LH/RH roof rail air bag (head protection), a LH/RH side air bag (spine and hip protection, 2-4 per car), and seat belt pretensioners which remove the slack from the belt system.

By the way, if you are unlucky and get in a accident and they want to save the car please keep this in mind. In my Professional opinion, dashes must be completely replaced, seat belts must never be reused, seat anchors must be reviewed and all the seat belt anchor points must be looked at and scrutinized. In heavy accidents, metal yield is everywhere and just replacing a frontal airbag in a existing dash may become a airbag that loses its anchor point during your next crash for the obvious reasons. Seat Belts have stretch, the next crash and they could tear apart, especially for larger males.