Installing Motorcycle Seat Cover / How to Re-cover a Motorcycle Seat

Like many motorcycles 40+ years old, the original seat on this bike was worn out.  The vinyl was hard and brittle, and there was a large tear in the cover. 

The good thing is that there are plenty of reproduction/aftermarket seat covers available online.  One thing I noticed is that the instructions that came with the seat were very general and high level (pretty much worthless).  This was the first time that I have done this, but it turned out pretty good, so I wanted to share how I did it.

1. Remove the old seat Cover.  There are metal barbs that need to be bent out of the way to free the trim strip which is attached to the vinyl cover. 
   
   
   
   
   
2. Before putting the new cover on, I cleaned up the seat pan, and painted it with rust seal paint, to restore it back to like new condition.  
   
3. Next, is to start fitting the new cover.  The seat cover kit that I bought was not exactly the same as the original.  The chrome trim was not attached as part of the vinyl, and there was a ½” strip of Velcro sewed along the base.  I first stretched the cover over the front and back.  I used heat gun to carefully soften up the material to make it more pliable as I pulled it into place.  The heat gun also worked great to take out all the fold crease marks in the vinyl cover from the packaging. 
   
4. This kit also came with a strip of sticky back Velcro.  I cut this into small pieces and stuck them to the seat pan so I could use them to temporarily hold the cover down with the Velcro strip sewed to the vinyl.  I pulled the sides over and stuck them in place with the Velcro until the cover was taught and looked right.  The Velcro trim and strips made this very easy to do. 
   
5.  Now that the vinyl cover was positioned, I then began pressing in the chrome edging.
   
   As the edging is pressed on, I cut slits in the vinyl where the metal barbs need to poke through.
   
     I worked my way all around the seat pan with the edging with these steps – Press the edging on and cut a slit for the metal barbs.
   
6. Once the chrome trim was all the way on, I squeezed all the metal barbs back into place to grip the trim piece to hold everything together.
   
   In the front portion, where the barbs were much smaller, I drilled a few holes and secured the vinyl cover with some pop rivets as well.
   
7. Now that everything was secured, I cut off the extra material and removed the stick on Velcro strips from the seat pan.
   
8. The last step then was to cut the holes in the sides so I could put the new handle on the seat.  I am very pleased with how the finished product turned out.
   
   
   
   

Cleaning and Sealing the Motorcycle Gas Tank

The gas tank on this bike was pretty disgusting.  All the exposed metal inside the tank was rusted and the bottom was caked with some crusty gunk.  My plan for the inside of the tank was to get as much of that crud out of there and then seal it with a permanent liner.

The first thing I did was rinsed it out a few times with hot soapy water.  Then I filled it about half full with more hot soapy water and duped about 30 nuts in the tank, closed the lid and shook it around for about 20 minutes, turning it in different positions periodically. 

This is supposed to help knock loose some of the crusty junk stuck to the tank and wear down some of the large rusted areas.  After doing this, I emptied out the tank, and rinsed everything out of the tank a few more times.

Next, I plugged the bottom of the tank, where the petcock (fuel valve) threads on with a piece of rubber and hose clamp, and poured a gallon of Evapo-Rust into the tank.  I’ve never used Evapo-Rust but Rick Dale from American Restorations uses it, so it must be good.  

I let this sit in the tank for a few days, re-positioning the tank each day so that solution could make contact with every insider surface to dissolve as much rust possible.  

This worked really good to dissolve the rust, but there were still some greasy sticky chunks that did not want to rinse out. 

To take care of that, I sprayed a lot of heavy duty degreaser and high pressure water from the garden hose into the tank. 

I rinsed and repeated a few times until it looked pretty clean inside.

Next step was to dry the tank out from all the rinsing, so I could apply the chemical sealer.  It was a humid summer night so I used a heat gun in attempt to accelerate the drying and enjoyed a beer while I waited.

The sealer I used was from KBS coatings, called Gold Standard. I picked this because I used their brand of rust seal paint when I refurbished the frame, and I was pleased with the results.  To apply it, you simply plug the openings and pour the whole can into the tank.  You have to sit with it for 45 minutes to an hour and slowly roll and turn the tank so an even coat is applied over all the surfaces.  At that time you dump the remaining sealer out of the tank then let it sit with the cap open for a few days while it cures.  

The results were pretty good and the tank is now fresh and clean inside.