Fire Extinguishers

[gee_fin]

I'm interested in seeing the general consensus on this, where do you fix yours?

[Matt Seabrook]

Located elsewhere (in the garage )

[Martin Keene]

Passenger floor, just in front of seat.

They should never  be mounted in between the seats. In the event of an accident they escape, punch a sizeable dent in the windscreen and they get thrown back into on of the seats... which wouldn't be life threating but it would hurt like something very painful!

[chappers]

I agree that there is the possibility of flying extinguishers if they are mounted between the seats, but in the event of a non-impact related fire then I want to be able to get to my extinguisher immediately without having to faff around with undoing harnesses to reach it, so mine is between the seats.

It's a 600g black one (possibly a bit on the small side) but it does look good. See midnightracer.com for some nice colored ones. Carbon effect anyone?

[neilwillis]

You can reach between your seats without unfastening your seat belt?   Not a 4 point harness then?

I'd put anything heavy like that low down, close to the centre of gravity, out of harms way, and where if it does get loose, will just rattle around in the passenger footwell.

[Westfieldman]

When I get round to fitting one it will be fully plumbed in and the tank will be either under the passengers knees of on top of the diff and plumbed in to

The engine bay x 1 or 2

Fuel tank x1

footwell x1 [ask Scott why if you need to]

[Matt Seabrook]

On another thread G has been talked about. Lets say you hit something at 40mph and stop in about 1/2 a second. That in my maths is almost 4G. That 600g lump of metal is now almost 2 1/2kg or in other words a club hammer. I not going to say dont put a fire extinguisher between your seats just dont ask me to get in it.

[markcoopers]

With you mat.

Garage.  

But I wont be putting it between the seats. Had an early car like this, and yes they do come out with quite a bang.

[neville]

Mine's between the seats but I've taken the precaution of securing it with two quick release straps in order to avoid it flying loose in the event of heavy breaking/sudden impact.

[chappers]

Looks like I'd better fit some Velcro straps around it then so it can't come loose. Better safe than sorry.

[Mark Stanton]

Looks like I'd better fit some Velcro straps

Probably still not strong enough    

[gee_fin]

Pretty much stimulated the debate I was after  

Just shocked and worried when I see all these photos of cars with extinguishers in between the two seats...appears at a rough guess 20-25% of people do this  

[felters]

Looks like I'd better fit some Velcro straps

Probably still not strong enough    

You're missing the point...

The mounting bracket is probably held on with a couple of self tappers. Strapping the extinguisher to it simply means that the whole lot breaks free.

When will we learn? I see people with £20/30k spent on their build and the poxy unsupported roll bar fitted, extinguishers mounted where they are going to brain you if you take a shunt head on, silencers that give noise levels well over 101db and lights that serve no more purpose than meeting the bare minimum of the MOT requirements and then guess what? The government starts to get prescriptive because we can't regulate ourselves and the howls of protest go up!

Get sensible guys before the DFT does it for you.

[neilb]

I had mine on the two posts for the standard seat belts - until some Chav decided they wanted it

[Camel_Landy]

I had mine between the seats.

Assuming you've not got it on a pair of self tapping screws... A cable tie or velcro (with a good overlap) should hold it in place in the event of a colision. I'm of the opinion that the extinguisher should be close enough to hand that should you be trapped in the vehicle, you can still reach it.

That said, I never got around to checking out the mountings & restraining it in the Westie (Jeremy... Another job for you) but the ones I've got in the Landys are securely restrained.

M