Factory air bag

95/XJ While hunting down non functioning horns today I had the steering wheel off to check the contact points and noticed that the air bag has no wires coming from it. I thought it would be receiving signals from sensors in the front bumper. So how does this thing work? Does it have an accelerometer inside? But then it has NO external power going to it.
Please don't tell me it has one of those farty little pendulums that you find in seatbelt units and fuel cutoff switchs.

96 and older have mechanical airbag systems while the newer models have electronic with a 'sensor box' under the center console. someone else on here will definately be able to elaborate as i dont want to give you false info.

The 95/96 airbag is purely mechanical with a firing pin and weight setup. When you remove the top plug on the steering wheel and back off the arming screw it disarms the firing pin and allows access to the nuts to remove the air bag. When reintalling and arming do not over tighten the arming screw. The arming screw torque should not exceed 1.1 to 1.7 N·m (10 to 15 in. lbs.)