Thread: How dangerous is my plan to drill holes in the body

I would make a bracket personally.

However, those little units aren’t worth it - not enough to control a fire. (Ok in the kitchen) - go up a size and find a more suitable location.

Firstly two screws will not hold that in place in an accident. You should look into the regulations for Motorsport fire extinguisher mounting as a guide.

You want to be bolting it in place which means likely a bracket that picks up some existing bolt positions and then you bolt the extinguisher to that frame you made.

As Tombie said, it’s a pointless size as well. It won’t touch the sides of any fire you come across (I speak from experience!)
2KG bare minimum for anything useful and suggest a 5KG mounted at the rear somewhere would be most effective, but up to you.

All our work vehicles have this size fitted - which are pretty pointless as mentioned, but better than nothing maybe. Ours are bolted to a bit of flat bar that’s then bolted through the floor so not as likely to become a projectile in an accident. I’d be doing something like that and drilling 2 holes if you can get to the other side of that area? Another bit of plate on the underside and it won’t be going anywhere then.

In my Sprinter I keep a 2KG unit in the cab and a 5KG unit in the back.

We used to have ours in our vans screwed in with two screws,but it didn’t take long for them to come loose.

So now,as others have said,bolted to a bracket,then bolted to vehicle with bolts and nylok nuts.
Size wise ours are 1 KG.

To give context - once a fire starts, you have seconds to extinguish it before the vehicle is a write off.

A small extinguisher will at best squirt out a small fire from a bit of spinafex on the exhaust and that’s about it.
A brake pad fire on an LV recently required 3 x 2kg units to keep it under control as it kept re-igniting. An oil fire (from a turbo etc) will take a serious amount of extinguisher to get under control.

Then there’s the powder - it destroys the vehicle, all electrics require replacement, panels and plastics get ruined.

If you use it, and it works, you still have a write off.

Better to grab the occupants, grab your phone and wallet, move to a safe distance and watch it burn whilst calling the fire service (followed by your insurance co)

Those plastic brackets they come with are hopeless for vehicle mounting. Too weak to stand vibration. Not hard to make a more rugged version, and,as above, mount that solidly.

Originally Posted by Bundus

Hi everybody, I am planning to mount a fire extinguisher in front of the seat. The holder should be fixed with two screws. Is it safe to drill approximately at the spots indicated in the picture? Thanks for the advice!

Fire extinguisher.jpg

I have a 1.5kg powder extinguisher mounted direct to the seat uprights of the rear passenger seat behind the driver. Even here an extinguisher of this size can be an annoyance to passengers. In the front it was impractical to fit for the same reason. I discounted other locations as too hard to get to quickly.

Originally Posted by Tombie

To give context - once a fire starts, you have seconds to extinguish it before the vehicle is a write off.

A small extinguisher will at best squirt out a small fire from a bit of spinafex on the exhaust and that’s about it.
A brake pad fire on an LV recently required 3 x 2kg units to keep it under control as it kept re-igniting. An oil fire (from a turbo etc) will take a serious amount of extinguisher to get under control.

Then there’s the powder - it destroys the vehicle, all electrics require replacement, panels and plastics get ruined.

If you use it, and it works, you still have a write off.

Better to grab the occupants, grab your phone and wallet, move to a safe distance and watch it burn whilst calling the fire service (followed by your insurance co)

What he said.

We carry 4kg fire bombs in the rally cars and all they do is give you a few minutes to get out, especially in a turbo car. Once that oil feed ignites, it’s goodnight Irene.

All I carry now is a fire blanket. My logic being that the most likely fire I will need to deal with is a campfire or cooking fire. It may help with an underbonnet fire but I’m not holding my breath.

I have just recently bought a Firestryker. Don’t really know if they’re any good, but figure it can’t be much worse than a regular extinguisher and its a hell of a lot lighter and takes up less space. Hopefully I’ll never find out if I wasted my money or not.

Cheers,
Jon