Author Topic: Kap Industries Fire Extinguisher Bracket  (Read 5406 times)

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Offline Canuckrz

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Kap Industries Fire Extinguisher Bracket
« on: February 03, 2016, 03:32:41 am »
I started out my search for a fire extinguisher mount as most people would by looking for the usual suspects in the Subaru market, in this case it was the subimods fire extinguisher mount. It was even on sale at the time through them, however with our crap exchange rate combined with subimod's insane 45 dollar shipping fee plus customs for a piece of flat bar I decided to look elsewhere.

After some googling I discovered Kap Industries, a small Australian company who seems to specialize in fire extinguisher mounts. In addition to the Australian dollar being close to on par with Canadian they also offered free international shipping. $60 bucks and a couple weeks later I had it in my hands.

http://kapindustries.com.au/?product=wrx-fire-extinguisher-bracket


Overview

The packaging leaves a lot to be desired aesthetically, but the contents weren't exactly fragile and once again free international shipping so can't really complain.





The bracket is made of 2mm thick steel (thank you fellow commonwealth country for using metric) and is available in red or black and drivers or passengers side. Also included is a couple of what appears to be stainless bolts with nylock nuts for attaching your fire extinguisher bracket to the seat bracket which is a nice little addition and saves me having to go to Rona's and find some to fit myself.




The color is powder coated on and is fairly thick and very nice and evenly done. The little Kap Industries plaque on the side is just a sticker, and while is a nice touch will more than likely wear/peel off from being in the foot well of the car.



Also included is a very nice, and very big Kap Industries vinyl. While it is pretty cool, I generally don't decal up my car and this one is especially big at around 4"x 10" it's unlikely I'll be using it on the Fozzy. What would have been nice is if they included a smaller vinyl (say 1"x 6" or so) that still integrated their logo but looked more like a fire extinguisher plaque to let people know there is a fire extinguisher in the vehicle. That would have been more cost efficient because of its size and imo people would be a lot more likely to use it.




Install

I was initially concerned that 2mm wasn't going to be thick enough to keep the extinguisher suspended in the air while being offset from the seat bolts, however as it turns out it isn't intended to suspend the extinguisher at all like I had initially expected but rather basically rests/presses into the floor. 2mm is more than sufficient for this task but unfortunately that means that your floor mat will essentially be bolted into place and the mount will have to be removed to take out the floor mat.



Also of note there is only one bend in the sheet of steel, in the case of my install the bend wasn't quite sharp enough which I noticed fairly straight away. It was very easy to fix given that I had access to a vice and sliding T bevel; it only needed about another 5-10 degrees to be perfect so it was by no means out to lunch. This could be because of my fozzy vs it being made more for an impreza, it could be that its intentionally bent shallow and you need to bend it to suit which chassis its being bolted to between the impreza, leggy, or fozzy. Or it could just be that mine in particular wasn't bent quite sharp enough. Either way very minor issue and was easily corrected.



Another thing to consider which is going to go with any seat mounted fire extinguisher is if you have aftermarket floor liners like weathertech or husky you are going to have to do some trimming to allow the bracket to attach to the bolts. One upside to the Kap industries design VS the subimods one is it looks like because of the closeness of the fire extinguisher mount to the seat mount holes you may end up needing to take a much larger chunk out of your liner to fit the subimods mount. This is just speculation looking at the design, it might not actually be the case in practice.

Another thing to note is that these seat mounting bolts can and will crossthread super easily. The threads on my bolts were a little buggered up from the factory just removing them from the hole. I ran a die over them to clean up the threads to be safe m10x1.25 iirc; and also used a dab of antiseize for good measure.



For the extinguisher itself I went with a 2.5lb Garrison 1A10BC unit from Canadian Tire. Its the biggest size extinguisher you can comfortably run in the foot well of the Subaru, it comes with its own metal mounting bracket complete with rubber bushings to stop rattling, and the mounting bracket has plenty of holes to align the extinguisher with. Also it goes on sale on and off for $30, so this whole setup only cost $90.

http://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/heavy-duty-1a10bc-fire-extinguisher-2-5-lb-0460078p.html#.VrHRwbIrKPo

The main section of the bar has lots of slots the whole way across to give you lots of options as to where to bolt the fire extinguisher to without making me concerned about its strength. This combined with the plentiful mounting options with the extinguisher bracket made lining it up exactly where I wanted a breeze. Also the seat bolt holes are slotted as well which gives you some wiggle room while bolting down the mount which is much appreciated and went without a hitch.

Here it is all installed with the seat fully pulled back:




And it completely clears with the seat pushed all the way forwards as well which I was kind of surprised to see:





Conclusion

For the price you can't do any better unless you'd prefer to dick around and make one yourself. Install was smooth and easy on both sides of the bracket and was good quality overall.

The tiny nit picky gripes:

-The included vinyl could use some revising/shrinking to make it more useful and likely to actually be used
-The bracket needed a little bit of a bend to fit perfectly, very easily done if you have a vise
-Having to unbolt the bracket to remove the mat is a bit of a pain, though how often does one really remove the mat. A possible solution would be to replace the bolts with studs, then you wouldn't have to dick around taking the bolts in and out of the captive nuts and risk crossthreading something, and it would just slide back into place onto the studs

Offline KennyB

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Re: Kap Industries Fire Extinguisher Bracket
« Reply #1 on: February 03, 2016, 07:42:38 am »
I'm going to look into these.  A fire extinguisher is never a bad thing to have in a modified car.

Jesse.Korpan

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Re: Kap Industries Fire Extinguisher Bracket
« Reply #2 on: February 11, 2016, 09:34:15 am »
Do you feel any unease about getting into an accident with this or do you think its strong enough not to pose an additional risk? It is under the seat so I cant see the extinguisher coming loose and bouncing around might just be me over thinking the 2mm bracket.

I like the look of this for sure might be something I will look into as well

Offline Canuckrz

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Re: Kap Industries Fire Extinguisher Bracket
« Reply #3 on: February 11, 2016, 01:48:44 pm »
If it was being suspended in the air at all by the bracket, yes I would possibly be concerned. However with the way the design essentially pushes into the mat I don't believe there is any chance that the extinguisher will have enough mass to be able to bend the bracket from its own weight in an accident.

More so than the thickness I would be concerned about the amount of meat at the bolt up location as the point where it would fail first in this scenario, however with the flanged bolts I don't see it posing much of an issue, though I had considered getting some washers that would fit inside the indent in the seat rail so it got more even pressure on the extinguisher bracket. The reason for the lack of material around the bolt holes is fairly self evident, to allow for the slotted holes for ease of install but keeping the bar a uniform width makes better use of material for nesting the design into the plate of steel they are being cut from. So they're a necessary evil in order to maintain ease of installation and keep the manufacturing cost down.

For those who are more fluent in gauge of steel 2mm is equivalent to 14 gauge.

Jesse.Korpan

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Re: Kap Industries Fire Extinguisher Bracket
« Reply #4 on: February 19, 2016, 07:24:31 pm »
Just ordered mine tonight based on your review, price of the part and free quick shipping. Hopefully have it be for the Trail of the Gnu TSD in April.

Offline Durandal

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Re: Kap Industries Fire Extinguisher Bracket
« Reply #5 on: March 02, 2016, 07:45:39 am »
I also just ordered one based on the contents of the review. Thank you for your time and effort writing it.
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Offline Jpp66

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Re: Kap Industries Fire Extinguisher Bracket
« Reply #6 on: March 17, 2016, 09:58:01 am »
I ordered one of these ass-well. Its been 4 weeks and I still haven't received the bracket yet. I emailed Russell and her confirmed that it did ship and that if it got lost in the mail he would send another. How long did yours take to come in after you ordered?

Offline Canuckrz

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Re: Kap Industries Fire Extinguisher Bracket
« Reply #7 on: March 17, 2016, 11:21:19 am »
It was only around two weeks or so iirc.

Offline Durandal

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Re: Kap Industries Fire Extinguisher Bracket
« Reply #8 on: March 22, 2016, 11:23:13 pm »
Just installed my own bracket tonight, after a week or so of extra waiting courtesy of Canada Post (they somehow 'lost' the package for multiple days between dropping off a delivery notice at my door and actually transporting it to the post office for pickup).



Good fit and finish, fits the seat mounting bolts nicely, the supplied hardware was perfectly sized for my extinguisher bracket holes, and it doesn't interfere with moving the seat all the way forward if desired. Mine didn't require any extra bending, so my only gripe would be the same one as Canuckrz; the logo vinyl is too large. If it were smaller I'd probably find a place for it on a window.
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Offline Jpp66

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Re: Kap Industries Fire Extinguisher Bracket
« Reply #9 on: April 21, 2016, 11:44:44 am »
I can confirm fitment on the GR chassis. I installed my bracket this week. Fits perfectly with just the carpet summer mats installed. I just slid my winter mat forward slightly, you could trim a couple inches off if you wanted to. No bending or modification required.

I will add a note about the excellent customer service and communication from Russell at Kap. My first bracket was lost in the mail and hadn't arrived after 5 weeks. He promptly shipped another to me at no extra cost. The second bracket arrived within 2 weeks with no trouble. Russell was quick with replies to all my questions and inquiries. I would definitely recommend buying from Kap Industries.

Offline qwerty5434

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Re: Kap Industries Fire Extinguisher Bracket
« Reply #10 on: April 21, 2016, 12:06:49 pm »
I installed my fire extinguisher yesterday, Acklands Grainger has them for cheap including a mount for anyone interested. For the 2.5 pound one with bracket it was $30.

Offline Canuckrz

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Re: Kap Industries Fire Extinguisher Bracket
« Reply #11 on: October 24, 2016, 02:44:53 am »
Quick update, they have revised the included vinyl that a couple of us had mentioned based on our input. The new design is pretty much exactly what I was hoping for.

http://kap.industries/product/extinguisher-inside-sticker/

Offline RockThePylon

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Re: Kap Industries Fire Extinguisher Bracket
« Reply #12 on: November 17, 2016, 04:17:20 pm »
I also got this bracket, and it doesn't really work in my '03 WRX.

I already had the exact same 2.5lb fire extinguisher as Canuckrz, which I used to keep in my GR STI. I wanted a nice way to hold it in my WRX as well.

The extinguisher restricts where you can put the seat in the middle range. For this reason, I moved it to the driver's side, where it won't be as much of a nuisance.

Full Back


Middle-ish (Where the seat doesn't lock in for ~6 notches)


Where I like my seat when I'm driving (Only reason this will work for me)




The seat is restricted from moving fully forward by about 4 inches, because the extinguisher sits too high. If there was no buckle to retain the extinguisher, it was about 1 inch less in diameter, and I ran without a floor mat, it MIGHT just scrape by. But there's a bar underneath my seat the runs across the full length, and it's pretty low. If someone short wants to drive my car, the extinguisher will just have to go somewhere else.





The 2.0lb extinguisher still isn't quite short enough to clear the lever, so I'm outta luck. I've seen how far a fire extinguisher goes. Anything less than a 2lb'er, I figure you may as well just carry a timmies cup full of water.


As for the bracket quality itself, it's acceptable. Much nicer finish than I could accomplish myself, but I'd like it a little bit beefier. I don't want my ankles broken in a collision because the fire extinguisher came loose.
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Offline jellynuts

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Re: Kap Industries Fire Extinguisher Bracket
« Reply #13 on: November 17, 2016, 04:24:16 pm »
The extinguisher restricts where you can put the seat in the middle range. For this reason, I moved it to the driver's side, where it won't be as much of a nuisance.

Thanks for your review.  Why did you put in the rear seat instead of the passenger front? 
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Offline Canuckrz

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Re: Kap Industries Fire Extinguisher Bracket
« Reply #14 on: November 17, 2016, 05:41:11 pm »
Hrm that's interesting, it didn't interfere with Durandal's wrx seat sliding though he has a different extinguisher. His extinguisher looks to be the same diameter just ours is a bit longer. I wonder if its the thickness of that rubber mat?

Offline RockThePylon

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Re: Kap Industries Fire Extinguisher Bracket
« Reply #15 on: November 17, 2016, 06:03:20 pm »
Durandal's seats have the bar straight across for moving forward/back. Which is like your Forester, and my GR.

Flat on the floor doesn't matter with what I've got. And I'd need something around 4 inches shorter to clear the handle on the side, since it rests way too low for any extinguisher to clear.
I may scream like a dainty lady, but I punch like a fairly strong 11-year-old.

Offline Canuckrz

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Re: Kap Industries Fire Extinguisher Bracket
« Reply #16 on: November 17, 2016, 06:29:46 pm »
Ah I see so its a quirk with the older Wrx seats, yours would be the ones with the adjustable head rest eh?

Offline RockThePylon

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Re: Kap Industries Fire Extinguisher Bracket
« Reply #17 on: November 17, 2016, 06:58:25 pm »
Ah I see so its a quirk with the older Wrx seats, yours would be the ones with the adjustable head rest eh?

Yep.
I may scream like a dainty lady, but I punch like a fairly strong 11-year-old.