Thruxton-esque Conversion Seat

[afholderman]

I have been playing with the idea of forming a new seat. I really enjoy the looks of a solo, however, my girlfriend would be none to pleased if she lost the ability to ride with me. This brought me to the idea of building my own conversion seat with a removable cover, inspired by the seats on the Triumph Thruxton. I have done some searching and haven't came across any other GS's with this set up. If there are any bikes on this site with a conversion like this I'd love to take a look at them for inspiration. One item of the utmost importance is maintaining my ability to use my hinges and helmet lock, as this is one of my favorite extra details on the GS.

My thoughts are to build the tail section cover out of fiberglass, and glass in tube rivets soldered to a plate facing inward. These rivets could then be used to attach boat snaps on the inside with mates attached to the seat cover. I like the idea of glassing in a plate so that the snaps would be blind. Since the whole idea of this mod is to shorten the look of the tail, the frame rails would be trimmed. A bracket would then be constructed that would span the distance between them, allowing the tail light and license plate to be mounted. Since the glass cover will be removable no lights will need to be formed in to fit.

This is just a rough idea beginning to form. I would love any input or ideas from fellow members on this project.

[afholderman]

Some drawings to help illustrate my idea. Top image is the stock seat and tail piece set-up. The new tail piece would have angled corners to mimic the style of the tank. I have been looking at different quick-release methods for attaching the cover. The thruxton uses bolts like these, http://www.newthruxton.com/html/seat_cowl_bolts.html. Not too sure I want something that comes loose, to easy to misplace. As stated I had been thinking of using snaps. Only problem is whether or not the fiberglass would crack from the flexing of snapping and unsnapping.

[Flaming Chainsaws]

This looks interesting. I remember someone else did something just like this, except on a different bike. I'll look for the link.

[afholderman]

If you can find it that would be great. I've tried all the searches I could think of and came up dry.

[Flaming Chainsaws]

Here's some.

http://www.dotheton.com/forum/index.php?topic=15407.0

Here's a few ideas.

http://www.dotheton.com/forum/index.php?topic=9164.msg84155#msg84155

There's more but I'll keep searching.

[salty_monk]

There's one on the forum at the moment going this similar route..... It's black with white stripes.

[salty_monk]

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?t=170573

[Flaming Chainsaws]

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum...d.php?t=170573

Dang. You beat me to it.

So it looks like all of these two up seats with the solo seat capability are going the Thruxton style. Simple and easy

[afholderman]

Thanks for the link to the Nimrod build. I had checked that one out earlier but not since the seat was started. That is pretty much the exact idea I was going for, with a solidly mounted tail light. I notice most people go with a bolt down seat when building their own pan. Is it difficult to re-use the hinges and lock?