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New Custom seat from original seat - shaved seat, lower seat height.

18K views 33 replies 21 participants last post by  Wilder13 
#1 ·
trakmasterrs said:
Anymore pics of your seat? I'm looking to mod my seat as well and love the thinner look.

Im posting this at the request of trakmasters. I had my stock seat custom shaved and custom upholstered. My initial goal was to reduce seat height by 1-2 inches.

I called 4 different custom upholstery people here in Austin tx, just did a search for "custom upholstery austin" in google. One of them told me they didnt do motorcycle seats, and the other 3 told me to bring the stock seat in and they would quote me.

I ended up taking it to 2 different places. One of them is actually a very well known motorcycle seat upholsterer in central texas who has a shop just for this in Georgetown, TX. He was an awesome person to meet and I described to him what i wanted and he quoted me a pretty big amount. More then I would have liked to pay. I told him I would be in contact if interested. He showed me all kinds of examples of his work and it was very impressive. All motorcycle seats.

The other guy I called worked from his garage but he said he had been doing upholstery for 29 years including his own motorcycle seats. I explained to him exactly what i wanted and he quoted me half the cost of the first person.

At first i was a little skeptical as he works from his garage and does this only on the side now. He showed me a 67 corvette he had in his garage and told me he upholstered the whole car himself. I was extremely impressed with what I saw out of this car so I went with this guy.

He was done in less then a week and I must i am extremely satisfied with his work. Looks very professional.

In the end, he shaved off almost 2 inches from the front seat area, he retained the ability to put the cowl on, he did not modify any foam in the passenger seat area. He also kept the original strap and put that back on top of the new vinyl.

In the pics you can see the dip does not happen until after the cowl is placed on. I had to leave him my seat cowl actually to make sure it did not interfere. I did not want a gap or anything in between the plastic of the cowl and the vinyl.

Anyhow, he did not reinsert new foam or gel. The same foam was used just cut off, reshaped and he put the black vinyl on top. There is a ton of foam in these stock thruxton seats.

I only weight 160 pounds and I honestly do not notice any difference in comfort from the stock seat. If feels the same to me and I am now lower to the ground which is exactly what i wanted.

I am running stock shocks and only lowered the forks through the triple tree by a 1/2 inch mainly just to improve turning. Not really to reduce seat height. I did not want to interfere with turning too much as I try and hit the twisties pretty hard. I dont like the idea of pegs scraping.

Here are some pics and as you can see it is great quality work.




















 
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#17 · (Edited)
Just did this myself. I even managed to reuse the original vinyl. There's a few minor folds at the back, and a major one on each side which I placed under the strap. The result is not as perfect as yours (I've done a lot of different fabrication, but this is my first attempt at upholstery), but it looks about the same in basic shape

It's a great mod for us shorties. Either DIY or go to a pro, it's worth it. I'm 5'7" and it feels great to have both feet totally planted. It makes walking the bike backward while on it much easier and more stable.

And it feels great while riding as well. Before it felt like I was fighting the seat when gripping the tank with my knees. I tapered the sides quite a bit and it feels more natural now.
 
#19 ·
I also just finished my DIY seat mod as well. I took a page from Scott (Beetlebeard) who wrote a nice blog about his Bonneville Brat project. Like him, I used the existing seat pan, trimmed it substantially, but found it to be too thin and floppy now that the side skirts were cut off. So I cut and shaped 1/4" HDPE plastic sheeting (cutting board material) to fortify the seat pan. I then trimmed the existing seat foam down much slimmer on the sides and some from the top using an electric carving knife, slapped and stretched the original upholstery back on, and staple gunned the crap out of it. Looks hideous underneath, but pretty legit on the outside.

Here's a top view comparison of a stock seat with the modded one:

 
#30 ·
Thanks Smith!

Trust me, I experimented with piano hinges and cabinet self closing hinges, velcro, magnets, etc. This combo seems to work best. It's all in the little details and how I dialed it in.

I can make you one. Since it's custom, you could pick the vinyl, stitch color and pleat size.

:)
 
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