While I don't have a 330 GTC per se, I keep/place them in all (vintage) cars (including when testing clients vehicles) somewhere/anywhere easily accessible, not to mention making sure their annually tested and ready. In many (vintage) cars, a good (= "easily accessible") and convenient mounting location is sideways in front of (front) seat(s). Keeping them in the trunk, etc, can easily defeat the purpose. Remember the old saying "Better to be safe than stupid".
Something to keep in mind when selecting and using a fire extinguisher. The general rule-of-thumb is that for standard A-B-C type FEXs, each pound of capacity is good for about a square foot. In other words, a small 2.5# FEX is good for a wastebasket fire. Add an accelerant (gasoline, oil, etc.) and the situation gets worse.
I have a 2.5# inside my car and a 5# in the hatch. I drive a twenty year old car that I paid $400 for...quite frankly I just need to buy myself enough time to get the change out of the ashtray. Also...my knowledge is specific to industry/factory settings with overhead sprinkler systems...I'm not up on the latest vehicle specific systems or units. Some people choose expensive, integrated systems...others keep their insurance premiums up-to-date.
Beside the size, which can be affected by available space for mounting, selection of an extinguisher should consider type of suppressant, operators ability to use it appropriately. Having had seen few incidents in which the use of extinguisher appeared utter waste of its content, I wouldn’t be surprised if most people haven’t bothered to educate/train themselves with basics. P.S. Asking what some random forum members have in their cars is not necessarily even reasonably intelligent approach to aforementioned “education/training”. YMMV.
This is a very good point. I'm a Safety Officer by profession and we do quarterly classroom refresher training and annual live fire training where everyone gets to use a FEX to put out an actual fire. There are a BUNCH of YouTube videos...most of them are very short (3-5 minutes) but cover the basics... P.A.S.S. - Pull the pin. Aim (at the base of the fire). Squeeze the handle. Sweep back and forth. The absolute most important rule is: Don't be a hero. A FEX is a tool...and like any tool, has its limitations. Use the tool to get people, pets, and valuables out of immediate danger. Even a 75 million dollar 250GTO is not worth losing a life over.
I know how to use a fire extinguisher. I’m new to my 330 gtc and it happens to be 600 miles away from me at the moment. That in a nutshell is why I was asking about size etc etc etc.
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply whether or not you know how to use one. Perhaps I should've worded my reply more appropriately. I would recommend waiting until you have the car in front of you to figure out most convenient location and size for it/you. In the meanwhile, I would recommend researching any and all related equipment available, including sizes, suppression materials and application technologies, etc so when the car arrives, making a purchase decision should be much easier. I usually carry at least one 2.5 lbs Halotron charged extinguisher whenever driving* any vintage cars, mounted (even if temporarily) somewhere easily/quickly accessible, but as of yet (knocking on wood) haven't had a need to use them. * Even if a clients car has one, I always take my one of my own also as I know when they've been serviced/tested.
thanks Timo.....and no worries. Just trying to figure things out. Yes 2.5 sounds about right. Thx Chas
2.5 should be good given the unthinkable... I have mine mounted on custom brackets the the seat rails of the passenger seat. Easy to grab if needed and I did not want to drill the floor. Tom Yang I believe can do/has these brackets
Keep in mind the GTC has fiberglass floors, firewall, rear turn up and I believe the tunnel. You may want to keep this in mind when mounting in these areas with screws, you may need to use a machine screw and back it up from behind with a washer and nut or risk stripping the fiberglass.
yes it is all glass i believe and machine screws needed, and would recommend washer and nut behind to avoid a projectile... part of advantage to seat rail mounting
Having just gone through this myself, a 5lb bottle is pretty bulky. If it fits, that is fine, but I found it hard to imagine where to fit a bottle that size. 2.5lb bottle as a lot more manageable, but be aware that Halotron of that size is only rated for "2 sqft", whereas a Halon 2.5lb bottle is rated for "5 sqft". Halon has its obvious downsides, but there are upsides as well. Also note that there is a newer (fairly uncommon) type of Halotron called "Halotron brx" that is sort of mid-way between classic Halotron ("Halotron 1") and Halon in the "size needed for "5 sqft" capability. A final interesting fact is that at the smaller sizes the duration of time that these extinguishers will fire is generally about the same. The difference in weight shows-up as the amount of retardant expelled per second; i.e., don't assume that twice the weight give you twice as much time to fight the fire... Not making any recommendations (I'm not qualified to do so), but figured I could list some of the Google-search terms that might be useful to others. As folks have mentioned, best to do your own research and use your own sensibilities to decide.
Without a doubt carrying a fire extinguisher is an essential bit of kit when going for a drive in a classic car. Modern fuels with ethanol eat away at rubber fuel lines making classic cars more prone to burning than ever before. As already discussed a handheld extinguisher is for an incipient stage fire only. Most fires start off small so getting to them quickly is critical. Forget having an extinguisher anywhere but inside the drivers compartment. By the time you go to the trunk and then get to the fire so much time is lost that your chances of success are infinitely shorter. Element uses a totally different technology to tackle fires and has proven to be enormously popular among classic car owners. Briefly Element is an extinguisher that is 80% smaller, 1/10th the weight, yet discharges 5 times longer and does not make any mess to clean up. In addition it does not rob breathing oxygen or create any toxic byproducts and its solid non-pressurized construction means that it never needs servicing or requires any maintenance. Lots of more information at www.elementfire.com Here is a video we did explaining Element with a little known car collector who invited us to his garage Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I also looked at the Element. Interesting technology, and certainly useful. That said, it is not interchangeable with a traditional fire extinguisher. For better or worse, it does not function the same way, nor is it used the same way. Again, not making any recommendations, but folks should watch the various demo videos and decide for themselves which technology tradeoffs they personally favor.
I looked into it initially also, but didn’t see anything that convinced me to switch. Perhaps if I had an opportunity to do my own testing/studies... ..., but until then, I‘ll continue to carry something I have more experience with and know it’s effectiveness. OTOH, no matter what technology is available for use, probably the biggest contributor to personal fire extinguishing failures of any sort is same as in most other unexpected tragic life events, panic, which often leads to poor decision making. Seen this more times than I care to recall.
The #1 most important thing is to carry some type of fire extinguisher and we merely wish to present Element as an option and certainly not the only one out there. Personal comfort counts for a lot and we encourage anyone to carry any extinguisher even if it is not ours. That said I would like to make the following points: - While Element is new to the consumer world it is not a new product. It has been approved and used by Military, Police, and Special Forces groups globally for over a decade. Prior to that the technology was used in fixed installations for decades before so it is a well proven and vetted way of fighting fires. - Fire extinguishers generally work in one of three ways: 1. Cover the fire thereby robbing it of oxygen (ie a simple powder extinguisher) 2. Rob the fire of oxygen (ie. a C02 extinguisher) 3. Chemically interrupt the chain of combustion (ie. Halon or Halotron extinguisher). Element falls under the third category which (together with C02) is a clean agent extinguisher meaning it makes no mess. Where it does differ is that it does not rob breathing oxygen like C02 or create toxic gasses like Halon. - The videos on our site were all shot in one take with people who had never used an Element before. The military actually have praised its simple operation particularly in 'high stress' environments. We recently had a local racer have a turbo failure in the middle of a race. With zero experience and far from the closest Marshall post he put out his fire quickly on his $150K race BMW. Without a doubt that fire would have consumed his car had he not had the Element handy.
Again, folks should do their own research, but I have it from a few different sources that Halon is not meaningfully toxic in these sorts of applications. What is true is that Halon is not environmentally friendly.