Today I finished installing my fire extinguisher in the Alfa, one of the required safety devices prior to me getting out on the track at Baskerville tomorrow. I thought I’d post a few pictures and a description in case anyone’s thinking of undertaking a similar project.


I made my bracket out of aluminium (aloooooooominum for you non-Queen’s English types), using a sheet of flat aluminium for the base and a piece of right-angle bolted onto it to hold the extinguisher bracket.


The base sheet was 3mm thick and 40mm wide. I cut to 450mm to fit in front of the Alfa’s seats. The outer holes are for the seat bolts, cut at 30mm inside of each edge. The inner holes are where the right angle was attached.


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This is the right angle piece with the extinguisher bracket attached. It was important to fit the unit keeping in mind the fill length of the extinguisher once it’s fitted. This means the bracket itself will be off center, but once the extinguisher is fitted, it’ll be nicely placed.


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The bolts are 6mm and I used nylong locking nuts to ensure a snug fit that won’t move or squeak.


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I had to bore out the holes on the outside as I didn’t have a metal drill bit wide enough. They were 8mm but I bored them out to around 10mm so the seat bolts would fit through adequately.


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The installation took a little longer than expected as the seat posts didn’t line up with their holes straight away. I attached the rear posts first in the hope that they’d line up the front ones, but still had trouble. Loosening up the rear ones again meant that I could manipulate the front ones a bit more and eventually I got them in there. The hardest part in the end was the constant re-fitting of the hex key I had to use to tighten them again. I hate hex keys.


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The final result is reasonably neat, though it’d probably look better in black. I might remove it and paint it eventually. The mount is very secure and the extinguisher is easily accessible from either seat, without taking up any legroom.


The downside is that being mounted to the seat posts, it limits the forward travel of the seat. This is only an issue if I’m carrying someone in the back, which rarely happens in this car.


Soon, I’ll make up a shroud to cover the extinguisher so that it’s not so visible. Right now it stands out a fair bit and would be a pretty tempting practical joke for some young idiots out for a laugh.


All in all, I’m pretty happy with it. I’m not sure how applicable this design would be to any Saab, especially the newer ones with their electric seats, etc. But for what it’s worth, this one’s a simple design that works pretty well.


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