My buddy and I have been contemplating making our own new seats from the old stockers. It seems simple enough: pull out staples from plastic seat frame, cut foam off of plastic, cut up a memory foam pillow to look like stock foam, spray-glue foam to plastic, re-staple vinyl.

has anybody done anything like this? any hints/tricks? warnings? would memory foam be a bad choice?

 

I dont think the memory foam will be a good choice. I dont think its dense enough. you might be able to leave it thicker to make up for the lack of density, but then your seat cover wont fit. If your using new vinyl, then that wont be an issue. If you can find an extra hard, or dense memory foam piece, it may be ok. Memory foam tends to compress and stay that way as long as their is weight on the foam. When you hit bumps, you wont have any cushion to absorb it and will probaby be uncomfortable. Also, your ability to slide from side to side on your bike will be diminished. You will actually have to raise your butt off of the seat in order to lean from side to side.

I would call some local fabric shops and see what they have for high density foam.

I think the hardest part is going to be shaping the foam. I cut the foam on my wifes bike to get the seat height an extra inch lower. I used a hack saw to cut the shape out first, then I rough cut it with an agle grinder that hade a 1 inch sanding disk on it. I used a body file to help shape it after that which helped flow the material back together. the one thing I noticed was the seat that was formed orignally had a very smooth texture to it. Whatever mold they used left a very smooth almost nonporous surface. After it was sanded and filed, the surface was left very rough, I even tried 600 grit sandpaper and it didnt make any difference.

Be ready for a huge mess with sanding and filing the foam. It would be a good idea to get a mask to filter your air as you dont want to be breathing in the foams dust.

 

I'm with the no on memory foam cuz of it's design unless you have more cushin for pushin in the tush, but then you wouldn't have a need for a new seat.

Go to a fabric store, and get some good foam that is very firm. Expect about half your weight to push down on the foam so try to think about that when testing density of the foam. Putting the foam on a table and leaning on it with most of your weight with both feet on the ground, bouncing up and down a bit should give you a good idea as to what you're gonna get with your **** on it. If anyone asks what you're doing, say it's for a sex chair, you'll get a better response than saying it's for your seat on the bike

Alternatively, you could go to a junk yard, take the nicest, newest, car with the comfiest seat you found, and hack it up. Grab a bigger chunk then you'll need, go home and cut it to order then stretch and staple.

 

I just did my seat, I trimmed the stock foam and used a angle grinder with a sanding disk to make some contours to fit my rear, and then used a piece of memory foam, trimmed it to the shape I wanted, then I bought a jell seat for a bike, and cut it to fit in the seat so it gave the most support, and then for the top layer, I used a thinner piece of memory foam and then put the seat cover back on. I've ridden 150+ miles at one time and no pain in my rear..lol

 

Thanks for the input everyone. Ghost rider: you don't happen to have any photos of this foam sandwich you've made, do you? I like your plan tho.