"Fork in the road," or "Stick a fork in it"

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jsquared
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"Fork in the road," or "Stick a fork in it"

Post by jsquared »

I need to finish this bike, that is the bottom line. Right now all I have left to do is finish the seat and paint it, then start it up and get into the years and years of tuning jets and charging issues these 550's have. The seat is killing me though, and thats where you guys come in.

So, I have two choices: continue in the direction im going (an unknown (to me) road fraught with peril and discovery) or trash the seat/tail I had planned and do something a bit easier in the end.


Here is what Im working with so far, its an old picture and bike is way more complete now but I havent done any more work on the seat or tail since:

Image

If I do this I have a few things to figure out. Namely, adding padding to the seat pan, figuring out how to cover that padding with upholstery without it looking janky, sanding down and painting the tail piece, figuring out how to mount to tail piece to the seat pan, how to make the union of the tail piece and upholstery not look janky, and working in wired connection for the tail lightso I can still lift the seat to get to the toolbox and battery.


Option two is to ditch the CB700 tail piece and the seat pan I have on there now. I have one of these side-mounted '28 Ford lights laying around, which solves a few issues (tail light, license plate mount, license plate light):

Image


I could use that and get it installed in an hour or so, then work in a stock seat without the fender, or make some kind of brat style seat out of something or other. probably a stock seat though.

Image

Image

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Something like that.



So, what do you guys think? Anyone ever done upholstery work??? :D
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Zach
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Re: "Fork in the road," or "Stick a fork in it"

Post by Zach »

I've never done upholstery work but I started to look into re-doing my bikes seat recently and it really doesn't seem hard. My suggestion for getting foam is McMasterCarr, they have a place here locally in Atlanta and they stock probably every type of foam you may want to layer to make a comfy seat. It's in their catalog under raw materials or something like that if I'm not mistaken. As for getting your covering material I'm sure you can find it with a simple google/ebay search depending on what kind you want or you could go to an upholstery place and have them sell you a sheet. There are plenty of tutorials on how to do upholstery stuff online, there's always you-tube, and there is also the possibility of finding a book and learn that way. I'd suggest getting a bit extra and using some board to practice cutting/shaping/forming the cover. I'm going to hopefully be doing this soon enough, but I want to get my bike running before I worry about it.
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jsquared
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Re: "Fork in the road," or "Stick a fork in it"

Post by jsquared »

Oh I have plenty of ideas on how to bring it all together, I just want this fucking thing on the road and am afraid that if I work forever on the seat it still may not come out how I want and Ill have to scrap it anyway :) Decided tonight though that I can paint the tank and throw it on to get the bike running finally and go from there, once its running I might be a little more patient with making it look good.
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CodyW
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Re: "Fork in the road," or "Stick a fork in it"

Post by CodyW »

I don't know if it's the look/price you're going for, but those pre-fabbed cafe tails seem pretty easy:

http://www.caferace.com/Merchant2/merch ... _Code=RRBT" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.cafeseat.com/MediumCafeSeat.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Image

(those sites have tons of size options, just a couple of quick ones I found).

I think they can pre-pad them for you too, or you can do like my moped and just stack some neoprene on there and cut it to size. It's pretty uncomfortable though (although one of the local guys did a few layers on his bike and it seems to help a lot).
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jsquared
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Re: "Fork in the road," or "Stick a fork in it"

Post by jsquared »

That might be a good option if I ditch the one I have now, would be about the same price as a stock seat actually (shits is pricey for these old junts). Could do one of those and use the ford taillight set I have and call it a day. Im not a huge fan of the side tail light really but if it works it works I guess.
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