Seat

After our recent move I noticed my motorcycle was looking a bit forlorn. The seat was ripped in multiple places, with tape melting off the cracks leaving sticky trails of adhesive. I needed a new seat. I decided to reupholster it myself. Surprisingly this wasn't a mistake. It was actually rather simple:

1) Take off the seat, pull out the old staples

2) Remove the cover, wrap in vinyl (or more expensive, less durable, less forgiving leather)

3) Restaple, moving in a circle around the seat being sure to pull the vinyl taut. Cut the rough shape when you are sure that it will cover; you can wait until you have stapled half way. When stapling you will likely want to redo some of your early staples as the vinyl will stretch while you work.

4) Cut the excess about 1/2'' past the staples, the end result will look like this...

It wasn't very difficult to make the repaired seat cover match the stock original. I was very happy with the result, costing my 8$ in vinyl (with enough left over to do the seat again) and a 10$ staple gun. An aftermarket OEM part would be 35$ (plus shipping) and I wouldn't have ended up with a staple gun (and you wouldn't get this post). So we are all winners.