19 April 2010

FZ1 Mod Update: Seat Mounted Top Case -- Case installed

I finally finished mounting the case to the seat.  It took a little longer than I expected due to a slow imagination.  However, after spending Saturday at the AMA Suzuki Superbike Showdown at Road Atlanta I was too tired to do the planned Sunday ride to the Dragon.  After sleeping in then cooking dinner, I decided it was time to finish the seat mounted case.  (See these posts for more details:  New Project, Update 1, Update 2)


Recap:  I went from having an extra seat that I didn't know what to do with, either sell it or attempt to make a more comfortable seat.  I spent months doing "market research" by watching Ebay and the FZ1 forums classifieds to see how much people were getting for their used Gen1 seats so I would know how much to ask if I decided to sell it.  I hoped to at least be able to break even on the seat swap from stock to lowered.  My research revealed the market had changed from the time I bought the lowered seat to the time I was ready to sell.  So I decided to do a little more research to see if it was possible to mount a hard case directly to the seat.  A long night of googleing resulted in a detailed description of one mounted to a Ninja 250.

Then I saw the post about Sears selling top cases starting at $32 so I went to the site and purchased a case.  The first $42 (price + delivery to the door) were spent.  Next I took some measurements and discovered I could do it without needing to re-build the entire passenger section of the seat.  I spent about $10 on hardware at Home Depot buying long screws, pipe fittings, washers, and bolts.  I deconstructed the seat, did a little more measuring, and created the picture to the left.

It took a while to figure out how to put the cover back on.  Finally I decided to K.I.S.S it and came up with a decent enough solution.  I put the foam back in the middle of the seat, leaving a space on each side for the longish mounting screws that came with the case:

View from the side:


Next, I put the cover on, tacking the front and the sides of the driver's portion, making sure I could fold up the rear of the seat enough so I could mount the plate on top of the cover.

Here's the final result, with the cover tacked front, sides, and back:

On the bike:

With the case attached:




Total spent?  Around $60 for the case and hardware.  Now to mod the rider's portion of the seat for comfort.

Thanks for reading,

Patrice,
theWolfTamer
at

3 comments:

  1. CruzmanMonday, 19 April, 2010

    So what about it is uncomfortable? Or is your bike just uncomfortable in general?

    ReplyDelete
  2. P D HowardMonday, 19 April, 2010

    The seat in stock form is pretty comfortable but a little tall for me. With my riding boots, I imagine it will feel really tall. I want to lower it like my lowered seat except without the pushing me into the tank feeling the lower seat has. Was thinking of maybe adding gel.

    Either way, I wanted to wait until I got an electric knife to lower it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousSaturday, 24 July, 2010

    Wolf Tamer,

    Great Idea. I just picked up an 03 FZ1 that has both a corbin saddle and the stocker. I would like to make this modification, and also use the saddle bags. You mention on the FZ1OA thread you use these as well. Can you show pics of how you mount the saddlebags?


    Thanks,

    Phil

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Search This Blog

FeedCount