Hello all,
I’ve received invaluable help on maintaining and operating these vintage rides over the past few years from this great site. I hoped I could “give back” a little some day and from that perspective thought I’d share how I mounted my Roccity café bump seat on my ’77 550k. This is a compilation of techniques found during my research and I’m hopeful that other ideas might result. There are any number of ways to mount a café seat, and my particular needs were met using this method. My intention was to have a seat that could flip up on a hinge, have a replaceable seat base in case I wanted to change the seat pad, be of bolted construction so parts could be replaced as needed, make it easy to fab using common hand tools (am not a welder) and to be rugged enough to stand up to my riding “style”.
First off, many thanks to roccitycafe.com for a quality product. He fabs the seats on an as-needed basis, and the quality of the work in both fiberglass lay-up and gelcoat are superb. The seat is straight, true, flat, well-finished and at $125 pretty reasonable in my view.
First I cut a template to fit where the seat would be mounted and when the shape was right cut the seat base out of 3/4 inch clear pine. Two sides were beveled to match the curve of the inner seat, and all edges sanded. Will be protected with spar varnish a little later.
I spent maybe way too much time aligning the seat so that it’s perfectly located over the centerline of the bike and, in side-view, matches the horizontal lines of the fuel tank lower edge. A little Googling resulted in proper techniques for drilling thru gelcoat/fiberglass and this was accomplished with any cracking of either. Phew! The drilled holes for the hinge plates and seat base are a touch oversized, allowing for small changes in orientation when needed.
I mounted the wooden base to the seat using 1/4inch bolts, with flat washers backed by rubber washers (to help absorb vibration). The pin from a 6 inch heavy duty strap hinge was removed and the strap was thru-bolted to the seat base. Am using a 1/4 x 5inch bolt for a hinge pin at present The plate of the hinge was mounted on the opposite side and acts as a bracket for one of the bolts used to lock the seat down.
The seat assembly is secured using a 1/4inch bolt/wing nut on the right side and another hidden under the seat front. Access to the latter is by reaching in past the #4 pod. A snug/cushioned fit was accomplished by using short sections of foam pipe insulation on the frame rails.
The end result is a very stable base for the seat pad, to be fab’d this week. This morning I picked up a small piece of dead-flat birch laminate ($1) at the local lumber yard. Once cut to size, holes will be counter-sunk to receive the bolt-heads and I plan on using heavy-duty Velcro to attach the seat pad to the base. I picked out some marine-grade vinyl ($7) in light brown (rather than black) and will fab a cushion shortly.
Following that will be a complete disassemble for painting the ‘glass (and tank), hoping to be ready by spring!
