Low profile "Cafe" seat Build

[_XSesive_]

Hey guys, so I wanted to improve the look of my stockish '81 Special and the first thing to go in my book has to be the ugly stock seat. I did some research and found a few seats online that I liked in the Cafe style that I thought would look good, Motolanna, Chappelle Customs seats looked great, what was not great is the price of these things, anywhere from $150 to $350 for a decent seat. I thought I could build one to my tastes for a whole lot less, so here goes my first attempt at any kind of fabrication. (on a motorcycle that is)

 

[_XSesive_]

Here is what it looked like before i did anything

 

[_XSesive_]

bye bye old seat!!

 

[_XSesive_]

I started by making a cardboard template for the new seat pan

 

[_XSesive_]

Then I transfered the template to sheet metal and used a cut off wheel to cut out the pattern.

 

[_XSesive_]

Here you can see that I slotted the new pan to fit nicely over the frame

 

[_XSesive_]

Next I reused the front mounting "tang" from the old seat and attached it to the new pan.

 

[_XSesive_]

Also I salvaged the round rubber "feet" from the old seat

 

[_XSesive_]

On the old seat there were 2 thick rubber feet and 4 thinner ones, i drilled my holes and mounted them accordingly to the seat pan based on the gap size between the pan and the frame. I also tried to space things out to distribute my weight evenly.

 

[_XSesive_]

Next was a coat of primer and paint with my fancy rattle can spray gun.

 

[_XSesive_]

Seat pan finished!!! Now for the padding and upholstery.

 

[deadchef]

looking good, what's your plan for the rear fender?

 

[_XSesive_]

So when I got to this point i started to look around for a good padding material, I found some stuff online meant for seats and some other dual density foam looked like it would be good for this application but to get the pieces I would need it was gonna cost around $25 to $30, which is more than I wanted to spend. I did not want to do all this work and end up with this thing to costing as much or close to a premade seat, My Goal: Looks Great, Costs Less, LOL, So what I ended up using was three layers of foam rubber that I glued together with spray adhesive.

 

[_XSesive_]

The foam I found at WallMart. It is actually a workout mat. I decided to use it because it was cheap (10$) , it was more than big enough for my needs, and its made of foam rubber which will stand up to years of mechanical abuse without disintegrating, its water proof,it wont absorb water, and it will not rot. also it is a nice medium to firm density that wont just squash out flat. Perfect stuff!!

 

[Take Warning15]

Any pictures of the finished product? I might just borrow the padding idea.

 

[_XSesive_]

Using the same template I used to cut out the pan I traced out patterns on the foam and cut them out, then used more spray adhesive to attach everything together. first pic is 2 layers and rest are finished padding with 3 layers. you can also see how I used a very sharp long bladed knife to "round" the edges of the foam.

 

[Take Warning15]

Nice! Is it comfortable? I might do that and add a top layer of foam from my old seat. If I can manage to stitch up a cover by myself I'm going to try that route. Otherwise mine may end up looking like yours. I'm making the pan out of fiberglass though...

 

[_XSesive_]

Take Warning: yes ill post pics of the finished product, I've finished this project and i have all the pics and I'm Posting it all now

 

[_XSesive_]

Yes, its very comfortable, But i do prefer a firmer seat, keep watching this thread to see how I did my cover.

 

[Take Warning15]

haha, I can't wait to see this... I planned on doing a rebuild on mine and realized how much more I need to do to my engine than I thought. Now I'm left doing the rest of the budget on a budget of absolutely nothing.