So I've been eyeballing these awesome seats from Baldwin, Spencer, Corbin, etc. Beautiful but expensive. Being the crafty DIY and cheap bastid that I am I thought I could tackle this one myself and save myself $300-$600.
There is a very good DIY site here on modifying your seat:
http://www.diymotorcycleseat.com/
This was the basis for the finer techniques to do the job right. There are some good youtube vids on building custom seats as well if you search. One of my favorites was a guy in Germany that builds custom seats for BMW's. He is also VERY expensive, but they are really nice.
One of the things that I have never been able to figure out is how to get the seat cover to follow the contour of a seriously dished out seat. I took a ride to my local Ducati dealer today and found that they don't even try to get the cover to follow the dish on their twenty thousand dollar motorcyles. So if it's good enough for a Ducati, it's good enough for my Versys. Once you get the cover stretched on there good you're only talking about a quarter inch or so and your butt presses the cover down into the seat anyway.
I stopped off at my local upholstery supply place and got a piece of 1" thick memory foam - that really cushy stuff. Remnant - $3.
The German guy I mentioned glued this awesome foam covering over the seat foam under the vinyl. Darned if they didn't have this stuff, so got a yard of that - $15. And a can of spray contact adhesive for upholstery work - $7.
I also bought some extra high density foam that I did not use, and some really cool textured marine vinyl that looks like the stuff Baldwin puts on his seats. I figured if my original seat cover wouldn't go back on or got ruined then I would just have to make a new one. $15 for a yard of that stuff but didn't need it for this go-round. Last stop at home depot for a grinding wheel to contour the foam - $6, and I already had monel staples for my staple gun.
Okay, how to do it...
Remove the seat, turn it over and remove all the staples going back to the pillion. I left it on, turns out it didn't need to come off. The pillion foam is seperate from the pilot seat which is easy to remove. I toyed with adding some foam to the nose and cut a piece to fit under the stock foam, but once I got my seat contoured and ready to cover it was evident I didn't need it.
Now with the cover off I drew out where I wanted my 'dish' with a sharpie pen.
One of the things about the stock seat is that it tends to dig into the side of my thighs especially when I put my feet down when stopped. So I knew I wanted to narrow it just a bit to make that part more comfortable. I also hated the way the slope of the seat would keep pushing you into the tank. It's a very uncomfortable shape. Plus it's harder than hell.
Next I took a serrated bread knife and sliced off about an inch of foam and ground to the rough shape that I wanted.
The grinding wheel works really well but the foam pieces go everywhere - do this outside or where you can make a big mess. I did mine on the patio and I had foam everywhere including myself. You have to be carefull because it really cuts into it. You don't want to take more off than you want. It's easier to take more off as you trial fit it and sit on it. A lot harder to add foam back on.
Once I got it to the basic shape I wanted I tried it on the bike and sat on it.
Once I got the shape where I wanted it I spent some time getting it perfectly contoured and all smoothed out and even on both sides. I ended up taking just over an inch off the deepest part, and reshaped the sides. There is plenty of foam on this seat, I was really surprised that I still had quite a bit of overall thickness to the base seat foam.
Now I took my memory foam and cut it to the basic shape I wanted. My butt is pretty small so it didn't need to be real big. If you've got a bigger butt then you would want to widen your seat and/or make your soft section larger. The DIY seat website explains how the bones of your butt need a soft spot to sink into and this is what reduces hot spots and fatigue. Plus the shape of the dish distributes your weight all over which makes it a helluva lot more comfortable than the hard plank we get from the factory.
I traced around my new butt pad and removed the foam so it would sit flush with the rest of the seat.
I used an exacto knife but a razor blade would also work, cut into the seat foam about an inch and then shaved down and used the grinder to resess the area for the memory foam pad. You could also use a gel pad and do it the same way.
Each step of the way I would put it on the bike and sit on it to make sure I was getting it to where I wanted it.
Next I used my spray contact adhesive and coated the cut-out and the memory foam and glued it in.
By now it was getting dark and wifey wanted to get a pic of me with the foam dust all over but you can hardly see it. The seat pan is looking good now.
This stuff is the cats-meow for finishing it up. It has a dual density foam with a fabric finish on one side, 1/2" thick. It gets glued to the finished seat foam with the contact adhesive. Any slight imperfections are gone and you have a gorgeous finished seat foam to install the vinyl cover over.
Continued in next post...
There is a very good DIY site here on modifying your seat:
http://www.diymotorcycleseat.com/
This was the basis for the finer techniques to do the job right. There are some good youtube vids on building custom seats as well if you search. One of my favorites was a guy in Germany that builds custom seats for BMW's. He is also VERY expensive, but they are really nice.
One of the things that I have never been able to figure out is how to get the seat cover to follow the contour of a seriously dished out seat. I took a ride to my local Ducati dealer today and found that they don't even try to get the cover to follow the dish on their twenty thousand dollar motorcyles. So if it's good enough for a Ducati, it's good enough for my Versys. Once you get the cover stretched on there good you're only talking about a quarter inch or so and your butt presses the cover down into the seat anyway.
I stopped off at my local upholstery supply place and got a piece of 1" thick memory foam - that really cushy stuff. Remnant - $3.
The German guy I mentioned glued this awesome foam covering over the seat foam under the vinyl. Darned if they didn't have this stuff, so got a yard of that - $15. And a can of spray contact adhesive for upholstery work - $7.
I also bought some extra high density foam that I did not use, and some really cool textured marine vinyl that looks like the stuff Baldwin puts on his seats. I figured if my original seat cover wouldn't go back on or got ruined then I would just have to make a new one. $15 for a yard of that stuff but didn't need it for this go-round. Last stop at home depot for a grinding wheel to contour the foam - $6, and I already had monel staples for my staple gun.
Okay, how to do it...
Remove the seat, turn it over and remove all the staples going back to the pillion. I left it on, turns out it didn't need to come off. The pillion foam is seperate from the pilot seat which is easy to remove. I toyed with adding some foam to the nose and cut a piece to fit under the stock foam, but once I got my seat contoured and ready to cover it was evident I didn't need it.
Now with the cover off I drew out where I wanted my 'dish' with a sharpie pen.
One of the things about the stock seat is that it tends to dig into the side of my thighs especially when I put my feet down when stopped. So I knew I wanted to narrow it just a bit to make that part more comfortable. I also hated the way the slope of the seat would keep pushing you into the tank. It's a very uncomfortable shape. Plus it's harder than hell.
Next I took a serrated bread knife and sliced off about an inch of foam and ground to the rough shape that I wanted.
The grinding wheel works really well but the foam pieces go everywhere - do this outside or where you can make a big mess. I did mine on the patio and I had foam everywhere including myself. You have to be carefull because it really cuts into it. You don't want to take more off than you want. It's easier to take more off as you trial fit it and sit on it. A lot harder to add foam back on.
Once I got it to the basic shape I wanted I tried it on the bike and sat on it.
Once I got the shape where I wanted it I spent some time getting it perfectly contoured and all smoothed out and even on both sides. I ended up taking just over an inch off the deepest part, and reshaped the sides. There is plenty of foam on this seat, I was really surprised that I still had quite a bit of overall thickness to the base seat foam.
Now I took my memory foam and cut it to the basic shape I wanted. My butt is pretty small so it didn't need to be real big. If you've got a bigger butt then you would want to widen your seat and/or make your soft section larger. The DIY seat website explains how the bones of your butt need a soft spot to sink into and this is what reduces hot spots and fatigue. Plus the shape of the dish distributes your weight all over which makes it a helluva lot more comfortable than the hard plank we get from the factory.
I traced around my new butt pad and removed the foam so it would sit flush with the rest of the seat.
I used an exacto knife but a razor blade would also work, cut into the seat foam about an inch and then shaved down and used the grinder to resess the area for the memory foam pad. You could also use a gel pad and do it the same way.
Each step of the way I would put it on the bike and sit on it to make sure I was getting it to where I wanted it.
Next I used my spray contact adhesive and coated the cut-out and the memory foam and glued it in.
By now it was getting dark and wifey wanted to get a pic of me with the foam dust all over but you can hardly see it. The seat pan is looking good now.
This stuff is the cats-meow for finishing it up. It has a dual density foam with a fabric finish on one side, 1/2" thick. It gets glued to the finished seat foam with the contact adhesive. Any slight imperfections are gone and you have a gorgeous finished seat foam to install the vinyl cover over.
Continued in next post...