2004 Ford Escape Air bag code

comadi, Aug 25, 2:06am
36 ?
That's flash 3 - pause - flash 6; five times on start up.

I have had this problem intermittently for several years now.
Originally it was 46 or 47 ?, which when I googled it said right side Drivers air bag, unplug and re plug to clean the connection. (47 or 46 was supposed to be passengers side ?)
This worked every few months for over a year, then it became more persistent, so as per the law of DIY, I cut out the connection and hard wired it, and that fixed it.
Now I am getting 36 which the WWW tells me it is either the left or right side depending on the author.
Unplugging and re plugging doesn't seem to be helping.
I suppose I should chop it out and hard wire it to see if it works ?

Is anyone familiar with this problem ?