Roy Poynting column
There are several ways to tackle the issues encountered with regards to somewhere to sit on your restored machine.
When restoring a motorcycle, I like to do as much of the work as possible myself, although there are some tasks - like crank grinding and chrome plating - I have neither the skill nor equipment to undertake. Doing things for myself is usually cheaper, infinitely more satisfying (if I get it right!), and avoids those agonising waits while professionals ‘get around to your job as soon as possible’. There’s one particular job, however, which always causes me a surprising amount of angst, even though it isn’t particularly complicated, and doesn’t call for many specialist tools.
I’m thinking of the renovation of seats and saddles, and if you aren’t into restoration, you might wonder what the problem is. After all, autojumble stalls are full of pattern dualseats and saddle covers, and even saddle frames and springs, so you’d think all I had to do was buy a replacement. Unfortunately, what appears to be a vast number of pattern replacements actually only cover (pun intended) a fairly limited range of both bikes and seats.
The more popular 1960s bikes with a dualseat are quite well-served, but obscure lightweights will probably have to make do with a close equivalent.
And even nominally correct items are still effectively hand-made with slight inconsistencies. The pattern dualseat on my ES2, for example, really needs to be slightly longer to exactly bridge the gap between tank and rear mounting point. And – while I neither know nor care – rivet counters might well suggest the colour of the piping and top panels is incorrect for my particular model.
The situation is even more complex on mopeds and older motorbikes as they have single saddles whose frames have often become distorted and can only be straightened with serious heat. Again, replacement covers are hand-made items and inevitably feature minor variations, so they might need surgery or repacking to fit really well. And that’s assuming a near fit is even obtainable when many mopeds were made abroad by obscure firms, and many vintage bikes were fitted with saddles made by small businesses ‘up the road’ rather than by Brooks or Terrys.
If more than a new cover is needed (and it usually is) things get even more problematical, as the upper
Doing things for myself is usually cheaper and infinitely more satisfying... if I get it right!
saddle frame parts are normally crudely attached and pivoted from the fixed base with rivets, and these often either fracture, seize up, or have pivot holes worn oval. To restore things, you have to drill/grind away the rivets and bush the holes back to size. Then you come up against the problem that if you paint the parts separately you ruin the finish re-riveting them, and if you rivet them first the paint doesn’t penetrate the most vulnerable areas (which is exactly why the terminal wear and corrosion occurred). Consequently I normally devise removable rivets to stop the cycle starting again.
Returning to dualseats, dismantling them almost always reveals a mess, as it’s hard to envisage a better recipe for corrosion than foam rubber, or plastic, sitting on top of a pressed steel base. Water invariably penetrates the cover, and then sits there eating into the steel. On my current project, a decades-old rip in the cover had resulted in such a damp sponge that the base looked like something they wouldn’t have bothered dredging up from the Mary Rose. There were even rustencrusted holes in the major base area, as well as the expected tattered bottom edges.
It also turned out that although it was from the right make of bike, it was from a different model, so besides riveting on a new lower rim and glass-fibreing the holes, I had to remove the remnants of hinges before making and attaching the correct type of clips. At least the foam was in good order (once I’d removed the ingrained layer of red rust from its underside), and only needed to be slightly built up (I knew those salvaged elbow protectors from my old motorcycle jacket would come in handy!) to match the new pattern cover, which naturally was only available for a different model in this marque’s range.
I could, of course, have junked the whole thing and accepted something that more or less fitted. Or I could have had a replacement made by a specialist, but that would have taken a lot more time and money, and would probably have involved giving up the bike for ages while it was done. As it is, though I may grumble while I’m doing the work, I have the very real satisfaction of giving a new lease of life to something which would otherwise have ended up in the skip.