Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Extinguisher

After being frightened by seeing pictures of burned Sunbeams running the original Amal 267 carb (old leaky), I thought a fire extinguisher would be a good idea.  While a period-correct extinguisher all brass and shiny would be very cool, if it didn't actually put out any fires it would be useless.

Just like carrying an umbrella protects one from the rain ever falling, carrying a fire extinguisher should protect my bike from ever catching alight.  I got a good cheap black-chrome extinguisher from eBay.  Its rated ABC and should be good for whatever.  Its reasonably small, and came with a mounting bracket.

So, my first inclination was to mount it near the passenger footpeg holes.  This proved impractical, because there was no convenient way to mount the top.  The second inclination was to mount it behind the passenger seat.  But with such a large mass , I'd have to make some fairly heavy brackets to support it without vibration.

My last thought was to eliminate the seat altogether and just mount the extinguisher behind the driver seat on the existing mounting holes.  This is a two-fold advantage.  I don't like the passenger seat, I'm not permitted to carry passengers due to my antique insurance limitations, and there are no passenger foot pegs.  The second aspect is that there are big nasty holes in the rear fender that would no longer be "hidden" if I ever took the seat off.  The extinguisher hides the big ugly rusted holes.  Its not the most beautiful installation location, but it is practical.

I know it looks a little dumb, but what else can I do?  Any comments.


The fire extinguisher won't win me any beauty contests, but I won't worry about catching "old leaky" on fire.

2 comments:

  1. Just put a big NOS sticker on the extinguisher tank... that will make them wonder.

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  2. I ended up relocating the extinguisher to the left side passenger foot peg area. I also put the pillion seat back on. It looks much better now.

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