Fleetstar Seat Recover

I have recovered and refoamed several bike seats by now. This one was by far the least satisfactory. Not only are these humped seats much trickier than the usual flat form; I don't actually think that this seat is the correct one for the bike and although I had assumed (as had the PO) that it was the expected BSA humped type, I  now think that it isn't. I've seen lots of pictures of fleetstars with this type of seat, its got a much lower hump and its a little shorter overall. I think that BSA fitted the C15 Sportsman seat to these bikes but havent been able to prove it. Certainly the age and condition of the foam suggests that this is original. The cover however has been replaced. The PO (like me) expected the humped seat and fitted a humped seat cover- which was unsuccessful. Sadly when I sought to replace it I made the same mistake. A humped cover over a sportsman seat just doesnt fit. This meant that I had to make a lot of ad-hoc changes to my foam and the result was less than satisfactory. I think the result is no more than "passable". If you want to follow my learning curve I describe my steps below and I really think this would give a good result if you have the right seat and foam to start with ...  but bottom line: if I were to do this job again I think I would get it done for me!

When I got this bike I was told that the seat cover was split- I had believed that the foam and pan were OK though so it came as a bit of a shock when I removed the seat and found the rear of the bike was covered in nasty crumbling foam dust!

One of the seat pan captive bolts has come adrift with a break in the pan- nothing to reattach it to! The breakdown foam particles were pouring as a dust out of this hole.

Better remove the old split covering! Its held on by bent shark-teeth on the inside, and a chrome trim strip on the outside. The strip is held by captive  head Tee bolts that fit inside the trim's rear groove. These are drilled through the seat pan side and bolted on the inside with a 1/8 WW nut and washer.These were the devil to get out because they were recessed beneath an edge  trim strip applied under the seat cover and visible here as a bulge at the seat edge.

The foam underneath was disgusting! Deteriorated and crumbling- no strength in it at all.

Seat Pan needed de-rusting and welding to patch the hole for the captive bolt and also for the edge where there is a split. Seat trim strips are  shown detached. The edge trim beneath the cover had done no good at all and seemed to have promoted rusting. When I refit I will fit the trim around the edge- over the cover!

Underside of pan. Edge trim which promoted rusting around the edge is still in position in this picture,.

I have welded the pan-fitting two new captive studs. I will treat it to some anti-rust chemicals and stonechip. In the mean-time I am trying to get a new foam and cover. Not cheap but unavoidable. A new seat is around 200 quid and doing it myself should be less than half that.

Seat Pan painted in black hammerite. welded patch visible

I need a new foam and cover- the cover I must get pre-made as sewing a new one is beyond me, however a new foam is £60, and I should be able to improve on this. I ordered a block of 6BLRECON foam- a reconstituted firm foam of size 60x13x26 cms which is a good approximation to the base size. In order to simplify matters I asked the supplier to make the first cut as a simple step (sadly they couldn't cut slopes). I asked for the block to be cut down to 5cms in height for a distance of 51 cms from one end.

I also need some new T bolts to fix the trim strip back on, Mine had three one side and only two the other. As some of the hounds teeth grippers have snapped off as they were bent back into position I will need more bolts to hold the cover firmly. The existing bolts have heads that are 0.35 x 0.56 inches in size and their stems had 1/8ww nuts. I will have to source an approximate equivalent, which turned out to be item  BSF495. from Bresco.com. These have a metric bolt (m4) and the heads are slightly different in size but can be filed down.

I ordered the new seat cover from Ebay and got a very decent cover made by Viper. It came with misleading instructions telling me to fit it using staples (?) and that it didn't require an edging strip- although strangely the unnecessary edge strip was in fact provided?? I have now recovered about a dozen bike saddles and I have yet to find one where fitting with staples would be appropriate (or even possible as classic bike pans are metal) so I have no idea what they are going on about. Sorry for the rant but I am a literal person and I love instructions. It bothers me when they are clearly not suitable for the bike or part supplied. Anyway the trim supplied is a nice piece of smart chrome/plastic edge strip. Its intended to be fitted over the seat cover where it folds over the edge of the pan and this is a more usual arrangement. However, the trim I found  in place was under the cover. I think the latter is probably correct if you are going to refit the bike's original chrome side trim strips as I intend (hence my search for new T bolts above), or possibly just use a black trim for the edge if fitting over . If you don't do this then you would end up with two chrome strips down the seat and I can just bet that they wouldn't turn out to be parallel!


Cutting the foam
I orderd foam block of 26x60x34 cm size and cut down to 5cm height for 51 cms of its length. I asked the company to make this first cut and so I received a step shaped foam which could be further processed. To make these cuts I am using an electric carving knife which worked really well on this firm foam. I intend to apply a covering of softer foam afterwards.

First cut is 3cm back from the factory cut step and made app 45 deg. This meets the base of the step to give the chamfer.

Here the chamfer is marked on the side

I marked the back of the foam for the rear chamfer 9cms down from the top of the step.

I allowed a 1cm top gap between the cuts and joined up the lines to show the rear slope

Finally I marked the underside of the foam to give the base relief. I went for a 12 cm slope but experience shows that 9 would have been a better starting point.

Finally I connected the lines on the side of the block to give the profile I was aiming for.

Carving knife for the cuts, take it slow and let the knife do the slicing. Don't push it through the foam, allow it to sink at its own rate.

First cut

1st two cuts

Finally cut the base relief.

Lay the pan on the foam, note that here the base cut is really about 3 cms too long and should have been 9 cms not 12.

Draw outline of the pan onto the foam

... and trim vertically downwards to shape. I then cut a 45 degree chamfer- with hindsght I would have left this until after the following step which was to apply the 1cm medium foam cover for the seat area....

The product was a pretty fair approximation of the old foam shape. Front needs trimming and the sides aren't quite even yet,  but this was easily fixed. However- see on, this foam was still too small for the cover- possibly the old one had simply contracted and so wasn't really suitable as a template or alternatively its simply the wrong cover for this seat.

However, it was at this stage that the poor fitting was first obvious. The cover was simply too "humped": there was a large void in front of the chamfer. To correct this I fitted the wedge released by cutting the base relief inverted in front of the top section. This just about took up all the spare room and stuck well using spray carpet adhesive- remember to spay both surfaces and wait 5 mins  for the solvent to flash off before applying them to each other.

I could then cut the 1 cm medium foam sheet to shape of the seat body

... and apply it to the seating area

I cut another section and glued it over the back of the seat to smooth the contours. note second chamfer now cut around the edge of the blue foam. I didn't need to chamfer the base layer. This ad-hocery has produced a foam with a much more pronounced hump

Test fitting the cover at the front using one or two hounds teeth just to hold it in position. The cover turned out to be about 4 cms longer than both the pan and the foam! I had to insert another packer at the front to take up this room and then fold the cover back to fix by the hounds teeth at the front of the pan.

 This test fit showed that the rear of the seat still had some slackness, also the rear was stretched over the steel pan side which didn't provide a smooth back section. I cut another piece of thinner foam and glued this to the rear of the seat pan to give a smooth profile by disguising the join between metal and foam and also put an extra pad in at the front to take up some of this excess space. It seems that this seat cover is really too big for the pan and foam; perhaps the seat has been swapped at some stage? Incidentally I would recommend getting a cover without the BSA logo if possible as these are harder to fit  because they show up any misalignment.

Fitting the cover, compress foam by pushing down seat pan and stretch cover onto alternate hounds teeth to take up the shape.

I fitted the seat cover loosely and left it overnight to allow it stretch before I tightened it up the next day. 
No pics for this part but some observations: Stretching a humped seat over the hump tends to lift the cover from the pan in front of the hump so its difficult to make the stretch even. Eventually I was forced to glue that section down to hold it while I stretched the rest.

The edges of the seat could be held loosely in the hounds teeth but to fix them in position I used these Woolies Trim clips

Woolies edging clips. Fit them with the half-moon side inside the saddle.

The clips are hidden by woolies edging strip into which they fit neatly (herringbone plain black). I used this rather than the chrome trim supplied because I want to refit the original chrome side strips and two chrome lines will look odd.

Seat cover in place, Woolies trim covering the edge clips. Still needs cleaning. The cover was simply too big for the pan and whatever I did I couldn't avoid excess material at the front.  Hopefully this will be hidden when the tank is mounted.

Final effect isn't the neatest in the world, although it will clean up a bit after I have refitted the seat mountings. However, its solid and usable; and a lot better than the seat as fitted when I got the bike. It was also achieved at less than 1/3 the price of a replacement seat, I  reckon its better than 1/3 the quality so win-win; but this is clearly a matter of personal opinion and I think this could undoubtedly be improved.

Tank back on but everything still needs a clean.

I fitted the original chrome trim strip using these new M4 Tee bolts from Bresco. They were slightly too wide but were easily filed to fit into the trim from behind. Here you can see the new bolts and the old 2BA items.

I put the strip in position spreading the tee bolts evenly- 5 per side. This is more than were there originally but I think the strip has an important role in retaining the cover- more so since some of the hounds teeth broke off when used again. I marked where the bolts should come  on the saddle cover and drilled the holes through the cover and steel frame underneath. Holes were drilled at 4.5 mm so that the bolts fitted easily through them.

Trim strip positioned on the outside and the bolts were fed through the holes and tightened.- inside view. These new bolts have integral nuts and washers which makes fitting less fiddly to install.

Seat loosely placed on bike. I will take some update photographs when I get the thing back together.