BUDGET Vintage Motorcycle Seat Restoration - PART 1

This week we take a break from the welding and painting and riding the vintage Honda dirt bikes and 3 wheelers and we try our hand a dirt cheap restoration of a destroyed seat off a 1972 Honda CB350 Four. We use our bag of tips and tricks to fix repair the seat pan and seat foam and add a nice new vinyl cover upholstery by the time we are done with this project. We even do a little chrome restoration rust repair with some nickel plating later in the series!!! These techniques should work on any old motorcycle from Yamaha or Kawasaki, or Suzuki, or whomever. This is just part 1 of the restoration. Please check back next wee for the next video!
We started out by assessing the holes, sun fading and other damage on the seat seat cover. It was trash. The vinyl was junk, the chrome was junk, there wasn't much let of the seat but dont fret. We can make it like new again.
During our brainstorming process we figured out a cheap way to fix the holes in the foam using a $10 closed cell camping mat from Walmart. Think of it like a really big flat pool noddle. I think we are going to fix some of the rusty chrome hardware with some polishing and do some nickel plating!!!
The disassembly process took a little time since I've never worked on a vintage Honda CB seat before but we figured it out. Luckily the hardware was in pretty good shape and nothing was missing.
The seat pan was really rusty but we fixed that right up with the Central Pneumatic Harbor Freight special sandblaster and a little Rustoleum low gloss black paint.
- Video Chapters --
0:00 - Intro
0:25 - Gameplan
2:50 - Seat Bracket Removal
5:30 - Old Seat Cover Removal
8:01 - Fixing the Rusty Seat Pan
11:04 - Painting the Seat Pan
12:45 - Seat Strap Disassembly
14:45 - Cleaning up the Rust Chrome
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[@BIGFOOTBIKESANDBREWS]

Let me know if you like this type of video compared to my normal highly edited videos. I am trying to get better at just talking live in to the camera and slow down to show more of the details of my work. 😀

[@AnfieldCat420]

I've had a 1986 elite that I'm working on and the seat has been absolutely thrashed. It's at the point now where I need to guy a new one (tough to find) or just do it myself. This video series is really helping me get a better understanding on how to refoam properly. Thanks BB and B!

[@BIGFOOTBIKESANDBREWS]

That is fantastic news. Glad you were able to get some information from the videos!!!

[@SeanSosa]

I like em both. Keep it up!

[@BIGFOOTBIKESANDBREWS]

Thanks dude! I need to get faster at editing, I'd like to try 2 videos a week when I have time. Maybe one pretty produced one, and one just hanging out talking about bikes in the garage.

[@BIGFOOTBIKESANDBREWS]

You get that Honda running 😁😁

[@waynekorzan2496]

Wow your assistant is so knowledgeable he must drive a Buick.

[@KTO1900]

Looks like he did a good job taking the seat apart. Now let's see if he can put it back together

[@BIGFOOTBIKESANDBREWS]

He did a darn good job for never doing a seat restore before. The thing turned out like new. Plus it only cost like $10 in foam to fix haha!! Now if I can train him on how to use a buffing wheel I will be set :)

[@wilfredprins9718]

Did your replacement cover came with the Honda name?
The one I got didn't have the name on it.
If your seat cover didn't have the name, what you used to get it back on?

[@BIGFOOTBIKESANDBREWS]

Hello Wilfred. The cover did not have a logo. I ended up cutting a stencil and used a white vinyl dye to put the Honda logo on it. I will do my best to get the video of that on the channel this coming weekend! Where did you get your seat cover from?

[@KTO1900]

I like the videos showing more detail. But I also like your normal videos. How about a mix??

[@BIGFOOTBIKESANDBREWS]

Sounds like a plan man,

[@DukeOfEarle]

Will there be a video of attaching the cover upholstery?

[@BIGFOOTBIKESANDBREWS]

Yes sir. I will try to get that video up very soon!!

[@mccoma11]

Just subscribed! I'm getting ready to do a seat for my cb550. Mine has the same type of clips on the inside. I saw where guys were using the carpet strips to reattach the cover. I need to figure out how I'm going to do mine.

[@BIGFOOTBIKESANDBREWS]

Hey Paul, I usually just rivet the strips to the original seat pan. They worked like a champ on the 350 seat. I will try to get the next video on the channel towards the end of this week. We recorded a lot of detail on the carpet strips.

[@BIGFOOTBIKESANDBREWS]

Also, the hundreds of teeth on the carpet strips make it a breeze to fine tune any little wrinkle out of the vinyl. I have made a couple of seat pans from scratch and the strips work amazing!

[@yveslegrand9826]

Too bad you didn't remove the foam from the base plate : it was not glued it is stuck by rust !
I did a similar job and though the base plate was looking fair on its underside the face contacting the foam was horible. I had to remove the rust crust from the foam with a table fork...

[@BIGFOOTBIKESANDBREWS]

Thanks for the good advice and thanks for watching!