So I bought a fabulous seat on ebay (my attempts at making one did not come out well) and I have just been trying to figure out how to mount it. My whole thing was that I wanted to be able to maintain the stock hinge and locking mechanism for the seat. Most cafe seat aren't really designed with that in mind (unless you have a K6 or older and can get a Guillari seat). I saw this great post from
shoemaniii -
http://forums.sohc4.net/index.php?topic=64566.0, and I had my mounting idea!!! (Thanks again for the inspiration!!)
I started by getting some 3/4" ply and cutting out a piece to go under the seat:
As you can see in the above picture, there is a slight groove in the seat pan (for rigidity, I am assuming). Due to this, I had to cut out a section of the middle to allow for clearance. I started with a couple of holes, and cut out between them:
Then a slight angle to help fit the curve of the edge of the seat:
The radius of the edge of the seat was a bit more than I wanted to cut away for, so I needed a couple of shims to make up the difference.
Rough cut:
Refined:
In the second picture, you can see the cut to help clear the rear fender as well.
The hinges were simple hinges that I bought at the hardware store. I cut off the other end and just used these sides:
After carefully bending the hinges to make them fit right, I had to make sure they were placed correctly on the plywood:
Both hinges in place:
It's kind of hard to see in the pics below, easier above, but the lock itself stuck up father than I wanted it too, so I had to trim down the wood where that will mount by just a small bit. I locked the board on it's edge on my table saw and slowly raised the blade to make an indent. Reset the width of a blade and repeat. Came out quite nice, I think.
Came out rather nice, overall, and the latch and hinges still work just fine. I need to shift it just a touch to the right, and that will take just a touch of work to the rear hinge. After that I should be good to go.
It does sit quite a low as I had wanted it to - I like the lower edge of the tank to line up with the lower edge of the seat - but I think I will be able to get used to it.
Then I cut out a base for the cushion from 1/2" ply and nailed the two pieces together. the back sits at a 100 degree angle to the lower section. Now I have to get some foam and I can start in on that.
That's what I was up to on my day off anyway.
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