lowering seat thickness gs1000E

[oldgrumpy]

hi guys ,,, is it easy or hard to shave the foam ,round off the corners slightly and put the org. flatish cover back on ... i really don,t want to go radical,, just accomadate a short rider regards david

[hampshirehog]

Good question - how easy is 'easy'?
If the tangs on your seat aren't rusty and bend easily to release the seat cover you're off to a good start.

Shaving the foam is the easy part (in my mind). You can cut it neatly with a good sharp electric knife - the thing for cutting the Sunday joint effortlessly. Make sure you mark the foam with a good marker pen before cutting! For rounding the edges just take your time to make a neat job.

The tricky bit is restretching the old cover to fit the new shape. You could be in trouble if it's gone hard with age but if it's still fairly supple warm it up (not hot - just good and warm) and refit. Don't pop in every tang to start off with as you may need to adjust things as you go. You won't be able to make drastic changes to the shape of the foam and expect to get the cover to fit tightly.

[gane]

hi guys ,,, is it easy or hard to shave the foam ,round off the corners slightly and put the org. flatish cover back on ... i really don,t want to go radical,, just accomadate a short rider regards david

Les, Flaws on the top side of foam become obvious when seat is warm... It's much easier to remove foam from area at base. work from the inside out, and attempt to leave side flaps as intact as possible as "holidays " here are nearly as obvious as top. with care, 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch can be removed and be almost indecernable. at under 1 1/2 inches (remaining pad) long term comfort becomes and issue. As noted, bread knives/electic carvers work nicely..final shaping , course sandpaper wrapped around a bondo spreader and worked in a "carding" motion is the best I've found to date. take your' time. re-fit and check centers/height often. seats and gastanks recieve 90+% of initail eyeballing. luck g

[Agemax]

if you arent sure, consider a proffesional job, they aren't that dear (in the UK anyway). my seat, re shaped with black suede came to a lot cheaper then me messing up a good seat

[Nessism]

On the '80 1000S, which has a shaved seat compared to the other 1000 models, Suzuki made a square cutout on the bottom of the front sitting area, roughly 8.5" square, where two pieces of 7/8" thick high density memory type foam are inserted. The soft yet resilient foam helps improve comfort over the molded foam normally used. One of the insert pieces was trashed on my seat so I bought an exercise mat and cut a couple of pieces to replace the trashed stock foam. The mat foam matches the stock foam insert pretty closely so I think the seat will be pretty comfy. Just shaving the stock seat might make for a pretty uncomfortable perch.

[salty_monk]

Ed my stock Skunk seat has that same hole under the sitting area too....

Dan