Recovering a seat on our 1976 Suzuki RM125 DoctorDanger.com

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>Project RM125: Recovering the seat

OK, so it might not be the most scintillating task, but here is how we recovered the Suzuki's seat...

Why recover it anyway...

When we bought the Suzuki it had a rather fetching blue seat cover, sadly this looked dodgy with the rest of the bike repainted in original colours, so a black seat was in order..

	The original cover was probably useable, but when you start a project like this you tend to become a little too interested in the details...its a '76 model B and I do believe that the writing should be in white on a black background featuring the appropriate model size designation on the rear of the side in 280 pt Impact condensed....
	First, slip the seat off the bike and remove the two plates at the rear of the seat. Sadly these are always rusty and one of the bolts sheared off, but that was the least of the problems...next remove all the old staples and the rubber pads and remove the old cover and the foam to reveal the seat base...
	...which in our case was a bit of a horror. Where the seat base sat above the exhaust it had melted, but could we get a new seat base - no, so its time to bodge
	First we roughly shaped some aluminium mesh into the approximate shape
	Then we added a good layer of flexible filler (heat resistant if possible)
	Which we then sanded down so that it didn't chew through the new cover, and hey presto you have a seat base that is at least useable.
	Having put the foam back on the base slide on the new cover and get it as central as possible. Make sure that it is sitting squarely on the base and that the foam is in the correct position.
	Next, staple the corners in place and then the centres - basically try to get the cover evenly tensioned - if you put a load of staples in one place you will end up with it bunched up in some other place, so work around the base consistently.
	Having got the cover firmly stapled in place you can trim the excess material (not too close to the staples, otherwise it will tear) and re-install the rubber pads and the mounting brackets.
	And there you have it...historically accurate and a darn site better than before.

and here's the plan...

1	Get a Bike...
2	Strip It
3	Clean it
4	Paint it
5	Seat
6	Engine
7	Frame and Suspension
8	Test it
9	Race it

Parts list & Costs

The costs so far...

The seat cover cost us £26 from MXM

Make sure that the staples you use are strong enough before you start by inserting a test one into the base.

What we learnt this time...

Really we should have bought a new seat foam as the old one was pretty sad (and melted in the same place as the base - we filled this with foam). MXM make great seat covers that even cack handed idiots like us can fit.

the next installment is the Engine>