Fireflex automatic extinguisher

Various goodies arrived from VWHeritage today including one of these extinguishers. Anybody got any tips or experience regarding the best way to route the tube around the engine bay on my '71 Bay?

I fitted mine no problem, but I got the big bottle so bending the tube round was tricky but OK.

I just looped the tube around. You will need more cable ties - ten were nowhere near enough!

PM me if you need a pic of the engine bay.

Pic of the engine bay please mike - looking at fitting a suppressant kit myself....

a 'how-too' or sticky might be a good idea?.

I'm just reading volksworld looking at a burn-out and ofc one of our own had one too. I think its important that if your spending £1000's its wise to spend £100-ish to protect it?

Johnnyâ„¢ said:

I think its important that if your spending £1000's its wise to spend £100-ish to protect it?

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Obviously (since I just bought one) I agree and it's also worth noting that the cheapest option if the 0.5kg upright bottle will suit most dubbers. I spoke to VW Heritage about the options and came to the conclusions that:

1. 0.5kg is plenty for an engine bay. You only need more if you are planning to run the tube around the inside of the van as well.

2. Although it's important to choose between vertical and horizontal mounting prior to purchase (because the internals of the gas bottles are different in order to get the maximum output) it's all down to where you want to mount the bottle. Given the amount of free space in a VW engine bay you'll usually be able to find room for the vertical bottle (it can actually be up to 30 degrees off vertical).

Thus the cheapest i.e. £100 quid option will do the job for most dubbers. Anybody who can't justify that to protect their dub ought to sell it and buy a bicycle.

Here are the pics...



I got the big bottle - had a run of bad luck and didn't feel I could take any chances. It fits in well, just a little tricky drilling the pilot holes, and you have to be careful using the screwdriver. Put the screw in first without the cage to tap the hole, remove and replace with the cage. Also drill and fix using just one screw before marking, removing the cage then drilling the second hole. Doing both at once can lead to one drifting and not being in the right place.





Loop the tubing round fixing with the cable ties to the grill above I used around 6 or 7 more than provided. Snip the ends off to tidy up. There is enough tubing to cover the whole engine bay.

Shouldn't take more than 30 mins including tidying up!

Finally just twist the bottle to make sure the dial can be seen for checking later (see first pic again).

Cheers for the pics and info Mike.

Interesting to see that the 'grill' in your '72 is metal whereas it's hardboard on my '71.

I'm also now wondering whether I might have been better with the horizontal bottle. There's load of space in the engine bay but having looked a bit closer I see that vertical surfaces are in short supply (I can't put my bottle where Mike has because there's a bracket in the way). At the same time there seem to be plenty of horizontal places (the entire roof of the engine bay for one) to put a horizontal bottle. I think I might order a horizontal on and use the vertical one in my bug (it'll go in there easy - I already checked).

Cheers for that Mike :wink:

Interesting to see that the 'grill' in your '72 is metal

Click to expand...

Could be another deluxe feature?

No my 71 is hardboard too...

Think my '71 is hardboard type stuff too.

Presumably it wouldn't affect fitting though.

Any suggestions as to the best place to buy these, price wise?

I'm thinking it could be a worthwhile investment on my van when I can afford it.

Got mine from Coolair.

I installed mine today and thought y'all might like to see a picture:



I fixed the mounting bracket to one of the metal beams. You can tell where they are by the fixings in the hardboard and the spot welds in the floor of the compartment above.

As stated by others: no way are there enough cable ties. I used almost twice as many as were supplied in the kit.

Very neat! Looks like the horizontal bottle does the job better than vertical.

This can now stand as sound advice - any chance of archiving it in a special folder mr earlybay?

thats a good idea mike, like a hot topics data file
stuff like lowering, carbs, adjusting sliding door etc :lol:

Not a bad idea Mr SK.... saves the trawling through decades of history....

I run a website and forum about making model terrain. What we do over there is that if something particularly interesting comes up on the forum, I re-write it as an article for the archives. The site's been around for about 10 years and we've got around 400 articles. Unfortunately I've also got a bit of a backlog of stuff to write up because it can be rather time consuming. It kinda works though.