Topic: 1hotwing seat on 550?

[Jay B]

I've been looking at one of 1hotwing's seats on eBay. Anyone have one on a 550, and how was it to fit? There's pics in his ad of a couple of 550's with this seat on, but neither have rear fenders. Do both halves of the fender need to be removed for clearance?

[cafe75-550]

I have/had one on my 550, can be seen in my avatar and gallery http://www.sohc4.us/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=13230. They're not bad to fit, but they are pretty generic. The seat fits over the frame rails (not on top), but is too narrow to use the latch mechanism. I'm not sure about the fender, I didn't run one with it, but I'm almost positive it would hit the stock taillight. It might work without the taillight...

I originally used the rubber bumpers off of the stock pan and drilled holes in the fiberglass to use the front pads (the curved ones) at the front and then punched holes in the two round bumpers and ran bolts through existing holes in the flat cross member, worked pretty well to hold it in place, but no hinge for easy access.

I ended up cutting the front pan section off of mine and just using the "bump", and made an aluminum pan that followed the frame rails more closely (the fiberglass pan doesn't taper, the rails do), which is what's in most of my pictures. I'm in the process of fitting another seat that sits on top of the rails, but thats my preference...hope this helps!

[Jay B]

Thanks cafe- The info helped a lot. I'm not sure that's what I'm going for on this bike. I think I will see what I can do with the existing seat before I commit, maybe trim it down to a soft hump style of seat. I'm going to be gone for a few days, when I get back I'll start messing with it abd see what I come up with. Nice bike in avatar BTW. Something like that is what this project was going to be, but I bought the bike and the stock pipes are just too nice to lose, so I'm going to keep it closer to stock, at least till they get bad.

[cafe75-550]

No problem Jay! I know that my bike has already gone through a couple of different stages, I started out with a mostly stock bike (the stock pipes were already gone) that went to mild cafe before I pulled the whole thing apart, polished the frame and lost all the covers and brackets. I've got it pulled apart again as we speak for more cosmetic modifications, one of these days the engine will be rebuilt...