Know Thine Enemy!

[Skeeve]

This will be an ongoing documentary of my attempts to remedy the gross shortcomings of the stock seat. Note that at no time to my hands leave the ends of my arms, nor do I say "Hey presto!", wave a magic wand, NOR DO I MAKE ANY CLAIMS WHATSOEVER that by following along my path you will achieve some higher nirvana nor even a more comfortable perch. What I do claim is that I will be following steps that largely duplicate those same steps that I have applied with some success in the past to other motorcycle seats, including some of the most notorious factory-issue torture devices known to modern motorcycle-dom, ie: the seats of a Suzuki SV650 and that of a 1986 Honda GL1200 Goldwing.

 

Background & underlying (if you'll pardon the pun) philosophy:

 

Modern motorcycles get a lot of criticism from the motorcycle press about how uncomfortable the seats are, how necessary aftermarket seats have become, etc. At one point, I was working on my motorcycle [the afore-mentioned SV: this was pre-Guzzi] and wondering "Why is this wonderful bike such a PITA on long rides?" I started thinking about how much better the old "bench" seats were on the classic bikes of my youth in the 70s, despite the lack of modern materials. In fact, practically all the "ancients" had to work with were some pieces of pressed-steel for the seatpan, a bunch of springs & horsehair for padding, and some old hide of the Naugha-beast laying around to cover it with... Yet while there were complaints of "the seat's too wide" or "too tall" or what have you, besides "seat is hard & you'll get tired of it on long rides," you rarely-if-ever read write-ups that opined "After an hour my butt hurt so bad I got off the bike and had wandering teams of cricket players beat on it to make it feel better..." like you're prone to do nowadays. I then thought further about how that all seemed to change in the late 70s and moving on into the 80s as the seat pans started changing into injection- or vacuum-molded bits of thermoplastic. After looking at the smooth underside of my SV's seat, I thought: "Where's all the reinforcement? Plastic is weak; there has to be something making this platform stand up under all the wt. of my passenger & me..." And it hit me: ALL THE ANCIENTS HAD TO WORK WITH WERE SOME BITS OF PRESSED STEEL &etc...

 

Have you ever seen sharp corners in a steel stamping? NO! And those old seat pans were mostly flat, flat, flaaaaaat. And if you look at the underside of a modern motorcycle seat, it looks smooth too. But thermoplastic (like modern seat pans are made of) is weak & flexible in flat sheets; where's all the structural reinforcement? Why, it's on the other side! [This is very apparent on an SV seat btw: nice waffle pattern on the topside of those seat pans!] So what? The manufacturer fills in all those nooks and crannies w/ nice cushy foam and no problem, right? Wrong!

 

What's the purpose of the foam? To collapse under the pressure of your weight and conform to your backside, evening out any pressure points. But if that foam is homogenous, how is the 2" layer over here supposed to behave the same as the 1" layer over there, resting on a reinforcing buttress? Newsflash: It CAN'T!

 

O.K., end of philosophizing, let's get on with the show!

 

Before we go any further, I just want to apologize for the (complete lack of) quality of the pics attached to this post. I started tearing into the seat before I thought of recording the process, and realized that the only camera I had around was the incredibly craptastic one built into my cell phone. At some point I may supply pics taken with a digital camera of greater merit, but don't get your hopes up...

 

This is the enemy:

 

 

The v11 seat has some unique features compared to many (if not most) other motorcycle seats. There's the recessed nuts for mounting the pillion cover/bumstop:

 

 

There are the rivets securing the "grab strap" [Note: while it may in fact be a legal requirement in some jurisdictions as a "passenger safety" issue, the strap across the v11 seat in reality ONLY serves to secure the seat cover against the step in the foam underneath; the strap is far too tight & poorly positioned to be of any use to a pillion...] Also note the plentitude of staples securing the cover; you'll need to remove those. I used my pocketknife, but a small, thin-bladed screwdriver could also perform satisfactorily:

 

 

The seat strap is riveted in place; you'll need to drill out the rivets. Fortunately, they're only aluminum pop rivets, & a power drill makes short work of them. I used a 23/64, iirc, but it's not a critical dimension: just eyeball a drill that looks like it's the same diameter as the rivet head protruding above the washer surface; that pretty much guarantees you'll drill out the shaft of the pop rivet before getting all the way thru the head. And the pop rivets Guzzi used have hollow shafts, so the drill mostly guides itself [this means they're easily dealt with by a hand-held drill, rather than requiring a drill press, tho' you'll need to pay some attention]:

 

 

Peel away baby, peel awaaayyy... [w/ apologies to Led Zepplin... ]

 

 

The stock foam is attached to the seat base at the edges w/ some very gummy glue; you'll need to patiently pick at the edges where they wrap around the edge of the seat pan, working your way around the perimeter. Of course, this is only important if you intend to reuse the stock foam: if you're just going to chuck it & have a qualified upholsterer work up a new seat on the old pan for you, then just remove the cover & rip the foam off in great handfuls!

 

 

After this is done, you end up w/ this

 

The foam (set it aside for now):

 

 

Behold the source of our riding agony!

 

 

This picture is worth some in-depth scrutiny. First off, notice the many rather sharp corners and odd plateaus defined by those corners and recesses. Now, oddly enough, that plateau that is pretty much at the center of the seat, with the rather semi-circular front? That serves no real purpose! If you put the seat back on the bike, & look at where it the cavity formed on the underside of the seat by the semi-circular portion this plateau rests when the seat is in position, you'll realize that the Guzzi engineers were probably trying to make room for a bigger tool kit or the back edge of the ECU, but they missed it by a mile! Moreover, that round promontory is going to behave like your much-larger-than-you-prison-cell-mate, & bang up against your bunghole all the time. Hmm... <_ of course that big flat promontory at the front seat is there to make room for battery so we cannot cut into all but what do about sharp corners and pillion portion saddle as my brother said when he saw me tearing saddle: some special one-and-a-half it too short two people... i had tell him wasn far wrong guzzi short-changed clearly only considered passengers toy bimbo riding with you next cafe typology not healthy sophia loren-substitute any guzzista would prefer have along behind holding on tight providing a much-needed back massage her feminine attributes before segue hooters thread let get business... src="%7B___base_url___%7D/uploads/emoticons/default_laugh.png" alt=":lol:">

 

Look at what Guzzi did to the passenger:

 

 

Ouch! Those mountains at the edge of the seat aren't going to promote greater understanding & rider-sympathy in any passenger I know! Notice I reversed the nut that secures the internally-threaded recessed nut/stud that the seat cover bolts to so that you could see how MUCH wasted space is used to convert the pillion's portion of the seat into a modern-day product of the Spanish Inquisition's favorite torturers:

 

 

If that nut is 1" across flats, then there's at least 1/2" of "too much plastic" going on here! [Old joke: "Are you a glass is half-empty or glass is half-full person?" "I'm a production engineer: you've simply got twice as much glass as you require for the job!.." ]

 

Retrieving the foam, you can kind of match it up w/ the pan to see where there's protrusions of excess foam that match up w/ hollows in the pan and vice-versa, but in come cases, there's an unfilled void! And if we make changes to the voids in the surface of the pan, than clearly we'll need to change the configuration of the matching foam surface. [Again, this is assuming reuse of the material. I'm cheap, & poor besides, or else I'd just send this all to Rich Maund & let him sort it out... ]

 

 

One last gander at the seat foam for now, and you can see that it has one glaring flaw in that convex curve [going from left to right]; I don't know about you, but my backside is mostly convex, ill-equipped with any sort of matching concavity to correspond with that convex curve in the seat foam, so right there, someone in Mandello failed to do their homework! Of course, this may have been purposeful, to make it appear like there actually was enough pillion real-estate available to transport more than a midget or child, but I suspect it was more a matter of "stylistic integrity," and in fact it does make for a very smooth and appealing line to the machine, esp. with the spiffy bumstop covering up the wholly inadequate pillion perch! Call me a purist, but the v11 is no race bike, and if I can't carry a passenger for 5 minutes w/o hearing complaints, then it's failing to meet requirements, and maybe, just maybe, some of the style will have to be sacrificed for greater functionality [yeah, I know I'll never make it on the custom bike circuit... ]

 

 

On the other hand, the passenger actually gets a more even & thicker foundation than the pilot, despite getting shorted on actual seating area:

 

 

 

That's all for now folks: more to come later as opportunity permits! [iow: "don't hold your breath!"]

 

Ride on,

[dlaing]

don't hold your breath!

Nice write up!

Waiting with fish baited breath

I had no success try to modify my seat. Gel got too hot, and filling in where gel was resulted in not enough padding.

[Greg Field]

I've always been the first person to complain about the seats on all my other bikes. Except the Billy Bob's seat. I can ride all day on it. I have no idea why it doesn't bother me. I'm not complaining, though . . .

[Skeeve]

I've always been the first person to complain about the seats on all my other bikes. Except the Billy Bob's seat. I can ride all day on it. I have no idea why it doesn't bother me. I'm not complaining, though . . .

 

Lucky you!

 

For those who want to read ahead in the class, the next step will be to roughen the upper surface [ie, side revealed when foam is removed] of the seat pan. Sandpaper wielded by hand works fine; we're not trying to remove anything but the slickness of the plastic itself so the surface has some "tooth." Power tools are fine if you've got them [wire brush on a drill, etc.], but unnecessary. Knock yourselves out...

 

Hopefully, today on my lunch hour I'll remember to go get some needed materials for the next phase...

 

Ride on!

[Skeeve]

On to the next phase!

 

 

After

 

 

Closeup. Seriously, not much is required, just eliminating the slickness of the original surface.

 

 

A quick wash & rinse in the sink.

 

 

My, look at the beads! This is some greeezy sh!t... Whatever shall we do?

 

 

Enter our friend from the medicine cabinet... Don't hold back, be wasteful! There's another bottle just like it for only $1 at a 99cent store near you!

 

 

Still looks wet, but no beading, water is gone, along w/ much of the oils in the surface of the plastic that would prevent anything bonding to it... Another 5 minutes, & poof! - totally dry. Just do yourself a favor and do this part outdoors during the day, so you don't have to have your windows open at night to keep the alcohol smell from giving you a headache... Of course, it only takes a little while for the fumes to clear, but be kind to your liver, it has to last a lifetime!

 

Next installment is probably a few days away. Just put the seat pan up out of the way, it'll keep...

[Guest ratchethack]

Say Skeeve!

 

You can't roll a circus like this into town and then go on vacation before the first act gets underway!

 

It looks like y'er all ready to glue some kinda wonder-butt foam on this thing.

 

So let's get on with it!

[Skeeve]

Say Skeeve!

 

You can't roll a circus like this into town and then go on vacation before the first act gets underway!

 

It looks like y'er all ready to glue some kinda wonder-butt foam on this thing.

 

So let's get on with it!

 

Sorry! Been goofing off the last two days [original vidiot; occasionally, I get OCD on a computer game, in this case, Civilization II on an old Mac that I was prepping to flog on eBay. Oy vey! I need a psychiatrist's help! ...

 

I'm heading to Loewe's right now to get some additional raw materials necessitated by the unique design of our beloved v11 seat; a bit of a change in my experience w/ performing this stunt on previous seat pans w/ markedly less relief to their topography...

 

BTW, I did a quick&dirty weigh-in on my wildly imprecise digital bathroom scale [only accurate to .5 lbs ] and the bare v11 seat pan is somewhere btw 1.5 & 2 lbs.; I'm thinking closer to the 1.5 lbs than 2, just from heft.

 

I'll do a weigh in after the mods to the pan are made so we can determine how much of a drain on performance all this is...

[Skeeve]

After a quick trip to the hardware store for some completely unnecessary but suitable additional materials

 

it's back to work on the seat! Since the voids we're looking to fill are so deep, I decided to add some space filler in prep for the next step, in an effort to keep the weight down. Now I have a lifetime supply of this stuff, but at only $4/can, I can afford to palm it off on my brother to fix the crumbly mortar in the brickwork of his house!

 

The instructions for use need to be followed closely, and say to "only fill voids half full as product continues to expand during curing." Now, it comes out looking kind of like clumpy cottage cheese & didn't really fill evenly, so I got a little carried away, pushing the goo around to try & fill corners, etc. (which just created holes requiring more goo) . 5 minutes later when I took this pic, it had expanded slightly beyond the point I expected...

 

...& I had already had to scrape some of the extra off with an index card as a spatula as the product expanded. A closer look

 

while still fresh. After letting it sit overnight to cure, it looks like this:

 

and it's very apparent that the instructions are correct! So, I can't stress enough reading ALL the instructions for use & safety before using this stuff! Well since there's too much of this stuff now that it's cured, what to do? Luckily enough, it's easily trimmed with a single edged razor blade [available in the same place as the can of goo, if you don't already have some laying around from your last housepainting project. Like so:

 

A closer shot:

 

Now, as for the clump of goop in front of the buttress or divider, well, that's going to be such a thick area of coverage in the next stage that it doesn't make sense to trim that flush, it's fine as it is. Of course, you might get more carried away with it than I did, in which case, you'd want to do some trimming. YMMV, as they say...

 

TTFN,

[WitchCityBallabio]

I've always been the first person to complain about the seats on all my other bikes. Except the Billy Bob's seat. I can ride all day on it. I have no idea why it doesn't bother me. I'm not complaining, though . . .

 

 

I have to agree. I've put 500 mile days on my Ballabio seat (with a pillion) too and have been fairly comfortable. Perhaps its the riding position of the Ballabio.

[Skeeve]

I have to agree. I've put 500 mile days on my Ballabio seat (with a pillion) too and have been fairly comfortable. Perhaps its the riding position of the Ballabio.

 

Looking at the padding & seat pan, it's pretty clear the rider is literally & figuratively "way out in front" on the stock seat compared to the passenger.

 

This project is still in process, & I'll be adding more to it shortly (I actually got an hour or so to spend on it this weekend. Woohoo! ) so bide awhile yet before passing judgment. The nice thing is that whether you decide to follow suit or not is entirely up to you, & I'm in no danger of putting Rich Maund out of business, but anyone who doesn't find the stock seat entirely satisfactory or wants to increase their (or more likely, their passenger's) riding time w/o necessarily going to the expense of sending their seat to someone else can make up their own mind about what's involved or how involved they want to be...

 

Ride on!

[VA Sean]

Good work, Skeeve.

 

 

You are much more patient than I am - and you appear to have more time, too.

 

To solve the numb-bum issues with my V11 seat (I am going on an 8,000 mile cross country trip this summer), I bought an Airhawk from Aerostich on Thursday of last week. It arrived yesterday.

 

[JoeV11]

I'm impressed you did all that and usually try not to pay people to do stuff that I can do, but I had to tell everyone about Spencers Moto Care seat service. He replaces the lower portion of the stock foam with a honeycomb material and a layer of different foam. When I got it back yesterday I couldn't go for a ride because it's 20 degrees and there's snow and sand on the roads, but I immediately felt the pressure points were gone. There is no loss of lateral support like an air pillow because the top part of the seat hasn't changed. I am very impressed. Not only that, it cost me only $75 plus shipping both ways and he shipped it back the next day after he got it! From the outside you can't tell he did anything but as soon as you sit you know! Joe

[fotoguzzi]

hurry up w/the next installment.. is filling the void really going to increase comfort?

[roberto tenni]

Perhaps my arse is a different shape from the usual arse but I don't get it.

My seat is just fine and I've done some big milage in single days - you should try 1000 mile days on a Daytona - pain, pain, pain.

[Skeeve]

hurry up w/the next installment.. is filling the void really going to increase comfort?

 

Sorry for the long delay; I am aware of time passing! My gf lost her job [again], we're upside down on the mortgage, and my mom is sick. I just haven't wanted to spend the dosh on a new can of Bondo; when I went to use my existing supply, it had gotten so old that working time was in single-digit minutes, it kicked over so fast!

 

Anyway, that's the story of why the project stalled where it did; as soon as Pep Boys has Bondo on sale again, I'll resume... I'm sure they'd have had a sale by now, but I must have missed it...

 

As far as filling the voids goes:

 

My first try on this method was on the seat for a Honda GL1200. [i know, I know: you're thinking "those aren't known for problem seats!" but bear with me...] Now, being long of inseam and low of pain threshold, I managed to commute on the GL about 30 minutes each way for a couple of years, and discovered that that was just about my limit: the step in the seat forced me into a certain spot, which combined with the angle of my legs from the ergonomics led me to have certain pressure points that led to pain right at about the end of my commute time. No big deal, right? Daily ride gets uncomfy ride as it's about to end. Agreed... but: what about when you want to go for a long ride, as this reputed "Barcalounger on wheels" is supposed to do?

 

I also had an SV650 that I split my time commuting on; that too had about a 30-45 min threhold before pain set in [15-30 for the pillion; the passenger seat on the SV is much worse than the GL's perch!] Applying my deductive powers of reasoning was fruitless; the idea came out of the blue one day that nobody ever b!tched about how uncomfortable the old bench-style seats were back in the 70s when I was kid. It wasn't because the materials were better then, it was because they all used pressed-steel (read "smooth") seat bases!

 

So I started on the GL [simply because the weather was good], and wound up with the doctored base in place but w/ no covering back on it when the weather took a turn. So, the SV [my baby!] got put in the garage & I commuted on the GL riding on nothing but the doctored seat pan, until I got a chance to put the foam & cover back on. In the process, I discovered that (aside from the hazards of having a seat you slid around on when braking or accelerating) I had about the same riding range as with the unmodified stock seat before pain set in on the hard modified seat pan alone!

 

That's when I knew I was definitely on the right track.

 

My attempts at recovering the modified seat pan weren't pleasing to the eye [the original cover was too frayed & weak to reuse], but definitely more comfortable than the stock seat. I'll get a pro to reupholster the modded seat pan on the V11; funny that someone mentioned Spencers' as I'd already considered that avenue as the likely conclusion to this project...

 

[NB: the same mod w/ the SV pan about doubled the ride time before pain for both seats. The newer seat cover was able to sustain the strain from cramming all the stock foam back under it; realistically, I should have cut out the part that fit into the SV's "waffling" reinforcement. Funny that Suzuki puts the reinforcement in on the wrong side, so that the underside of the seat looks all clean & smooth but you can't sit on it any length of time! ]