Thread: Seat pan repair

My seat pan on my KO is bent but not broken (kinda sounds like me ). I can bend it back into place but it has lost its strength and soon as I put my oversized bum on it ,it bends again. Is there a standard fix for this. Thought about puchasing a cheap Chinese seat off ebay .They don't have the latch hook welded on them. Thought I might be able to pop rivet the new pan on top of the old pan to strengthen it. Any suggestions other than a new seat would be appreciated.

Dave

Don't know that there's a lot wrong with PRC seat pans, they just need too much work to adapt to the classic CT70s. These are based on the late model CT70 design which had extra bracketry welded to the upper shock mounts, incorporating a seat lock.

Seat pans usually buckle & crack right where the tool kit ends. If yours haasn't cracked, you're in the lucky minority. Once it's been bead blasted you will probably find small cracks on the outer flange, that's where the added flex usually comes from. I weld three strips of heavy sheetmetal, about 3" long to the topside of the pan. One on either side of the hump, one directly center covering the creased area completely. You wouldn't believe how much rigidity this adds. If you do it right, it's an invisible repair.

do you weld it on the foam side of the pan or the under side? What guage ? And last I don't weld . Is that something a welder that dosen't know old CT70 seats could do with out srewing up the pan, as in wrong angle etc.

Dave

The metal strips go on the foam side or you'll have one fugly seat pan. It's not rocket science, I just use whatever heavy gauge sheetmetal scraps are on hand, at least as thick as the pan itself. It just takes a MIG welder and low amperage to keep from buring through. Any competent welder should be able to handle the job if you show him (or her) where the reinforcing pieces should be placed. I'll have this particular repair on the site around the first of March if you need an illustration.

cool, I'll watch for it.

I'm still thinking that if I can get one of the chinese seats off ebay for 50 bucks I could clam shell the pan over the old pan to get the correct bend in the rear and pop rivet it all together.

Dave

That seems like a bit of a longshot. There's no guarantee that all of the bends/contours will match exactly. I'm also not sure that a certain amount of seatpan flex isn't desireable to prevent distortion of the frame itself. You may be better off modifying the chinese pan and using it alone. An intact original honda seat pan is an easy item to sell, so you'd get your half C-note back. The stock Honda seat pan is strong enough to hold both my wife and I without a problem. Thus, I suspect that the PRC repop would be okay strength-wise as well.