Seat and tail modification advice (1984 KZ)

I want to give my bike a sportier look for the street, but I don't want to give up my ability to carry a passenger (more like my passenger won't be happy if I get rid of her spot ... ). Here's what I was thinking.

1) Buy an old seat in bad shape, or a just a seat pan.
2) remove the rear tail bodywork and lighting from the bike.
3) cut the frame a bit past the shocks and weld in a crossbar.
4) mount the tail lighting mounts to the shortened frame.
5) make a seat cushion (or use the cushion from the purchased seat) that leaves room for the tail bodywork to be mounted directly onto the seatpan.
6) Clip in the short seat and tail combo for riding with the mates and the stock seat (with no tail) for riding with a passenger.

Has anybody tried this? Any suggestions?

Im in the middle of doing this right now.Without hacking the frame.
www.kzrider.com/forum/11-projects/594313...ject-build?start=100

Thanks, I've actually already been following your project for a little while. it's coming along!

My plan is to sit on this (excuse the pun) until I find a secondhand seat in bad shape for cheap and scavenge the pan. The cheapest one I've found that I'm sure will fit was around $60. I figured that would be cheaper than trying to fabricate a pan- how much did the materials cost you?