Customize Your Touring Seat (pg 2 of 7)

Customize Your Touring Seat (pg. 2 of 7)
Page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Step 3 – Seat removal and disassembly

After you remove the seat from the bike, you’ll start disassembling the seat. I am only going to customize the rider portion and not the passenger pillion so I’ll remove only the front seat cover areas. The seat cover is attached with pop rivets that are drilled out to detach from the seat pan. Don’t worry about getting the rivet completely out, we are only using the drill to remove the rivet tops, so the seat cover can be removed. You’ll clean up the rivet holes before reassembly. Mustang seat foam is glued strategically to the fiberglass seat pan. You may need to use a dull screwdriver or other tool to pull back the foam from the pan. I use a dull chisel with rounded edges. Don’t tear or make any holes as you remove the foam. Try to keep it in good condition. There is also a softer foam top layer (for comfort) that you may need to detach as well. Since I am also shaping the front sides, I’ll need to expose that area of foam as well. I pulled back the foam top layer only enough to expose those areas around my legs that I’ll be shaping. See the picture for an example.

You can buy seats that come with or without buttons. Mine has them, so they’ll need to be removed before the seat cover and foam can be loosened. Cut the buttons off and release the foam seat.

Remove the rivets with a drill

Video: Drilling rivet tops

You only need to remove the rivet tops in order to remove the seat cover

Pull back the seat cover. The cover can only go back so far at this point because the seat buttons are still attached.

Peeling back the cover from the other side

The Mustang seat uses layers of various foam densities. The light density is the top layer for plushness. Each layer is glued together, so you’ll need to carefully separate where necessary to expose the foam area to shape or grind. We are only shaping the front sides and the bottom area. The bottom releases from the seat pan so we really only need to peel back the front side layer of the top foam layer.