‘76 KZ900 LTD restoration

Motomisfit - you'll find this forum has a good mix of restore guys and modify guys.  In 1979 my friend's Z1 scared the crap out of me, soon after I had one too.

I think my Kaw was stock  for at least a couple days  

Saying goodbye to an old friend. My butt’s been in that saddle more than 20 thousand miles but it’s done. Z1 parts supposedly “exact OEM” replacement but it seems to be a slightly different pattern on the cover. Krinkled instead of smooth like the original. No matter, it’ll look great.

The seat foam is pretty crusty but going to stay. That super thin plastic wrap was originally wrapped around the whole seat foam but was all wadded up when I took the cover off and this is the original cover. So cool…to me anyway…to take these apart and see how they were built.

You could consider a layer of "scrim" foam (2mm of foam on a linen backing) to smooth it out before fitting the cover ( see page 11 of my build thread, link is in my signature) it's thin enough to not effect how it looks but ties the foam together

Maybe that plastic film served the same purpose as the scrim Wookie mentioned with the added function of keeping the foam dry.  Just a guess.  Believe it or not sometimes these old bikes were left out in the rain.  Might be a good idea to do both.

Thanks Wookie. Did you glue the scrim foam to the existing foam or pad? Was that a seam you had to make because of the “crown” on the top of seat?

motomisfit wrote:

Thanks Wookie. Did you glue the scrim foam to the existing foam or pad? Was that a seam you had to make because of the “crown” on the top of seat?

The scrim is glued down with spray "evo-stick" (as it remains flexible when dry) start in the middle and work out, it's quite flexible so the only seam was "front to back" on the top of the hump. I worked out from the middle gently stretching the scrim as I pushed it into place so there weren't any creases then split the scrim on top of the hump, laid one side over the other and cut through both pieces so it laid down flat and even.(hope this makes sense) the black line in the picture was to show the trimmer where I wanted the seam in the cover. L don't know if you saw the end result but it was worth the effort

 

Wow nice job. I’m hoping mine turns out as well. I’ve had good luck with the 3M high strength and it stays kinda rubbery when it dries. I am for sure going to find some of that foam.

Not sure if my explanation was all that clear so I thought the below might help, you don't get too many chances with "contact adhesive" so the order I smoothed the scrim down in is
Green - Blue - Yellow - Purple (the thin red line is the only seam where I had to remove some material) once it's all stuck down you can trim the excess with scissors or a sharp blade 
You should be able to get the "scrim" from an upholstery supplier (it's not unique to the automotive world, furniture makers use it to give a "quality feel" to upholstered hard surfaces)

 

Perfect. Well done. I get it now, the black line was just a felt pen line. The scrim foam is simply foam with a backing so that it can glued and stick better. With some luck I’ll have mine done this weekend and post some pics. Thanks again

Got my foam today. College football and seat work tomorrow. What a better way to spend a Saturday