Wrap It Up! | Custom Seat Covering On The Cheap
01. The Insta Pan kit needed a bit of cleaning up where it met the sides of the bike frame, so we used an electric sander to smooth out the edges.
02. Once the Pan was smoothed out, we used the seat pan as a template to measure the foam.
03. After the foam for the seating surface was correctly measured, we cut it out with a razor blade.
04. The foam was placed on the bottom part of the seat pan. We then trimmed the foam with a pair of scissors to round out the edges.
05. The foam was then glued to the seat pan with some 3M adhesive spray and allowed to dry for two hours.
06. After the seating surface was securely affixed to the seat pan, we traced the tail section and cut the foam accordingly.
07. The foam was glued and attached to the seat pan with a bit of pressure and allowed to dry for a few hours.
08. Once the foam was completely attached to the seat pan, a bit more edge trimming was made to get the desired shape of the seat.
09. We then placed the Mexican blanket material over the seat and decided where we wanted the pattern of the fabric to lay.
10. The fabric was then trimmed to 5 inches around the seat. The fabric was pulled around the seat and attached under the seat pan with small screws and washers. The washers act to secure the fabric with a larger footprint so it won’t rip or tear under pressure.
11. After a bit more adjusting of the fabric, we had the look we wanted at a price we could deal with too. All this was done for less than $20 mostly with stuff we had laying around. Next month we are going the big-bucks route and taking this same seat pan and giving it a hand-stitched leather cover for your enlightenment and enjoyment.
Last month we installed a DIY Insta Pan seat kit by Stampede on our project Softail. The Insta Pan kit was very reasonably priced at $149, so we wanted to show you how to also keep the price to a minimum when covering it.
The first thing we needed to cover the seat was some low-priced cover material and a piece of good quality foam.
After searching for a suitable cover material, we looked through our stack of old T-shirts for something good, but ended up employing a small Mexican blanket. In the past it was used as a bedroll until a section of it got caught in the rear wheel and tore it in half. The remaining part of the blanket fit the bill and was free, so we had that going for us.
Once the cover material was sourced, we headed over to Bon-A-Rue’s Auto Upholstery in Orange, California, and scored a small piece of 2-inch-thick medium-firm foam. This foam is both the right density and thickness for a motorcycle seat.
Once we had all the needed parts back at the HOT BIKE mechanic’s lair, we fine-tuned the size of the foam, cut and glued it to the pan, wrapped it with our material, and secured it to the pan with screws for one clean and cheap mototcycle seat.
The Lowdown
Man Hours: 6.5
Difficulty: Easy
Aftermarket Parts Used: Mexican Blanket, Foam, Screws, Washers, 3M Spray Glue
Total Cost: $16.66
Sources
3M
(800) 362-3550 | 3m.com
Bon-A-Rue’s Auto Upholstery
(714) 639-6540
Hillco Fasteners
(714) 657-7442 | hillcofasteners.com
