Ideafiles

Opinions

Photography

My BMW

Toscana

About the
Ideaphile

About This Site

Critical safety gear, where you need it

Most people seem to keep their vehicular fire extinguishers in the trunk. That's fine if you happen to be in your trunk when a fire breaks out. If you're in the driver's seat, it would take valuable seconds to stop the car if necessary, get out of the car, open the trunk, retrieve the extinguisher, and return to the fire. Fires can move faster than you can.

I decided to mount a vehicular fire extinguisher where I can reach it from my seat. In fact, it's right under the front of my seat. Here's how it got there:

A fire-extinguisher bracket (720x540 JPG)

Here is the mount for my small automobile fire extinguisher (a First Alert 5:B-C model from the local hardware store) on the front of the driver's seat. On the optional sport seats I have, there's an extendable thigh support that comes out far enough to provide a very natural space for an extinguisher.

Installing the bracket was a non-trivial task. There's a convenient cross-brace that's large enough to hold the bracket, but the mechanical bits of the seat are right behind the brace. I positioned the fire-extinguisher bracket where I wanted it, then marked and centerpunched mounting holes. Before drilling each hole, I slipped a small, thin (0.060") sheet of stainless steel up behind the cross-brace to protect the components of the seat.

I used a 13/64" drill to make the mounting holes (you may want to use a 3/32" or smaller bit to make a starter hole before drilling the final hole; this will help keep the bit from wandering). To mount the bracket, I used #10-24 flat-head countersunk stainless-steel bolts trimmed to 5/8" long. Behind the cross-brace, I used #10 washers and #10-24 nylon-insert locknuts to provide vibration resistance. These were a lot easier to use than lockwashers, but even so, installing them was very difficult. There's hardly any space behind the brace. I finally gaffer's-taped one washer/locknut set into a short open-end wrench, which let me get them started and snugged down in one operation.

Please note that these instructions may not be relevant to your car, even if it seems similar to mine. Always be sure that what you're doing is safe and correct before you do it.

The mounted fire extinguisher (720x540 JPG)

Home

Site Map

Back to top