Nissan 370Z Forum - How to Fit an Extinguisher bracket

I have fitted an extinguisher into my car under my knees using the two bolts thru the front of the seat runners. I had to space the bracket away from the seat runners to get clearance.

You need to following:

2 M10 x 1.25 Grade 8 bolts, 50mm long
4 M10 washers
2 M6 x 1.0 or 1.25 bolts and nyloc nuts, 15 or 20mm long
A piece of mild steel strap, 25mm wide, 3.2mm thick and 450mm long
An M12 (or half-inch) drill bit, a M6 drill bit and a drill - a cordless drill probably won;t have enough grunt unless it is 18volt
2 pieces of 12mm internal diameter tube (or half-inch) approximately 20mm long - these are used as spacers.

The centre-to-centre distance of the seat runner bolts is 423mm.

Mark your strap and punch two starter marks 423mm apart. Drill your 12mm holes using the punch parks as a reference.

Obtain an extinguisher with s steel mounting bracket, not a plastic one. Remove the extinguisher from the bracket, mark the locating holes on your strap and drill, allowing for the location of the extinguisher so it does not foul against the outer edges of the seats as they run forward. Bolt the metal extinguisher bracket to the strap.

Move the seat all the way back and remove the plastic "caps" over the bolt heads that secure the seat runners (pry them up with a screwdriver). Remove the bolts.

Offer your bracket up to the holes from which the seat runner bolts have just been removed to ensure all is aligned. Do a dummy assembly to make sure your new 50mm long bolts will start nicely. Use a tiny amount of copper grease (No-Seize) if you have it. If the bolt starts and goes in 2 or 3 turns, all is sweet. If it does not start easily, figure out whether you have to dress the 12mm holes you have drilled a little to make sure the bolts turns smoothly. Be careful here because the captive nut into which you are screwing your bolt cannot be drilled out - it goes into a blind bit of the chassis and crossing the captive nut thread gets you into a mountain of pain to fix it. If you get into this situation, please do not blame me !!!!!

When the holes in the metal strap are aligned with the captive nuts into which your bolts will pass, thru the seat runner, you can complete the assembly.

Fit a flat washer on the bolts, put them thru the strap, put the 20mm spacer on next (required to keep the strap from fouling on the seat runners) then a flat washer on next, then offer the whole lot up to seat runner base, and then thread into the captive nuts in the chassis. Tighten to finger tight, fit the entinguisher into the metal extinguisher bracket and ensure that the seat moves forward and back thru its full range of movement without fouling the extinguisher. If the extinguisher fouls the seat, you may need either to shorten the spacer (angle grinder or hacksaw job), OR you can twist the metal strap about 30 degrees to acheive the same outcome - make sure you twist both ends of your strap in the same direction though) - see my example in the photo below.

When you are sure your mount is a neat fit, and the extinguisher fits into the bracket attached to your strap without fouling the seat base sides or the underside of the seat as it moves forward and back, tighten the two bolts through the seat runners. Do not overtighten - check for a reference on the web for torque setting for an M10 bolt - I don;t really speak metric, but would look at something like 40 ft/lbs - google should tell you what the correct setting for an M10 bolt should be.

I have attached a couple of photo's for the bracket I made up the weekend before last. If there is anyone in Melb that wants one, I bought enough bits and pieces to make 3 as experiecne has told me that things like this rearely work right first time. Send me a PM and I am sure I can get the bits to you (I work in Melb CBD).

Good luck

RB