Seat Re-upholstering 101... Uh oh...

So let's say you were attempting to resurrect, I mean restore you old KZ :whistle:
You got a new seat upholstery kit - foam & cover.
Then you discover that your old seat pan's metal triangle points are borked, rusted or missing. :ohmy:
What do you do to secure your new seat cover?

I found a piece of old refrigerator sheet metal, and fabbed a new spike strip, and popped it onto the rusty pan.

I like that solution,especially if the pan is rusted away. If its still reasonablly solid,you could punch some new triangles in it. Use an old carpenters chisel or sharpen up a piece of angle iron to make a V-shaped chisel.

These folks make & sell spike strips: www.pandkclassicbikes.co.uk/

Here's how they can be used:

slightly off topic, but when you fit the cover get it really hot - either in the sun or I heat it with a gas radiator for that skin tight look.

get some thin upholsterers wadding if the foam is damaged in any way...works for me ( The ELR seats are the hardest of the lot )

Gents!

Thanks for all the suggestions. I really like the looks of that system Ed posted about but I'm like ready to cover now and don't wanna wait for shipping from ol' Blighty so I reckon I'll have a whirl at it with Loud's idea and just punch out some from scrape steel. I shoulda' thought about this beforehand because I just rebuilt the pan along the entire side but couldn't think of a way to punch through the steel with anything I have in the garage. sigh... David's idea to sharpen a piece of angle iron to make a shear sounds promising. I have some bits of smaller sized angle iron kickin' around here somewhere...
Here's the pan yesterday after welding in steel:

You can drill and use short pop rivets.
Steve

I had the exact problem with my 83 KZ1100. Seat pan is a bastard size. Could not.locate one so I braised and braised. When it came to triangles I was missing a few. I used lol rivets with washers. Worked really good. Painted pan and it looks new with only the pop rivets to show any repairs were done. I considered punching new triangles out of the fresh metal I installed but with the time it would take decided against it. I ordered the cheap eBay cover for my bike and don't have any problem with it

I drilled holes and used short sheet metal screws. Kinda annoying but functional

i used the old pan as a plug for a fiberglass pan

Nelson wrote: I drilled holes and used short sheet metal screws. Kinda annoying but functional

Good idea!