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Restoring some life to old seat foam

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  • Restoring some life to old seat foam

    Not much chatter in this group. Thought I'd share a little seat fix I did the other day.

    The seat on my '76 Bonny looked good, but had no support. About 10 miles and my boney keister was sore from supporting my 185 lbs. Felt like I was sitting on bleachers.

    I pulled the seat off the bike now that it is put away for the winter and took it apart. First, I bead blasted and straightened the seat pan. Then gave it a heavy coat of Duplicolor univeral black enamel. I masked out all the decals under the seat pan so it would maintain its original appearance.

    The OEM foam looked fine, but was old and tire. It had lost a lot of it's life. So I went to a local industrial foam supply house and bought a 12"x48"x1" piece of scrap rebond foam. Rebond is the multi-color foam that is chopped up foam which is rebonded together, hence the name. It is the most dense foam you can buy, short of some specialty stuff. Make sure you tell the guy you want the foam they use for kneeling stands on church pews. They make cheap rebond too, and it is not the right stuff for this application.

    I was only restoring the section under the drivers part of the seat, since it is relatively flat there. I traced the seat pan onto the new foam, and then repeated the process by tracing the OEM foam over that. I wanted to make sure I did not cut it too small. Then using a piece of the new foam as a guide, I scribed a line across the bottom sides of the OEM foam so I could cut out a step in that foam where it meets the seat pan.

    I cut the OEM foam with an electric carving knife, which is the trick to cutting foam. I cut the new foam on my bandsaw with a coarse wood blade. I then glued the new foam into the step I cut into the OEM foam with spray adhesive I bought from the foam supply place. Once glued in place, I trimmed the sides at the same angles as the OEM foam with the electric carving knife. Came out great. I put the seat back together with the original cover and installed on the bike. Looks great and feels great. Feels like a Corbin seat now. Lots of support and OEM looks. Total cost was $11.00 for the foam and the spray adhesive.

    Attached is a sketch of how the fix looked. My photos were all too big to post here.
    Attached Files
    Regards,
    Rob Sigond
    AMCA # 1811
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