1971 R75/5 SWB Seat Refurbishment

Hola All,

I am in the process of refurbishing the seat on my '71 R75/7 SWB and I'm wondering if anyone has a source for the seat foam, or a good seat re-builder for that matter. I have spoken with the good folks at boxer2valve and their source has been back-ordered since shortly after the last ice age...... with no signs of relief on the horizon. I have a new BMW seat cover (sourced from Bob's BMW), side rails, trim/fasteners, and my seat pan is in remarkably good condition for its age. Any & all guidance will be greatly appreciated.

Mil Gracias,

Viejo

Foam

Well, to be honest, I had the seat on my 78 RS recovered after an accident at a local car seat shop. I had a new cover I sourced from Flat Racer in the UK, (a BMW solo seat) and the shop was able to cut foam they had on hand to fit. I would never know it is not the "stock" foam in the seat.

If not a car shop, I bet you could find a custom motorcycle seat shop that would do it for you.

The hard part getting the cover right and you have taken care of that by buying the proper cover and stuff to go with it. Just be sure the guy doing the work has a good idea as to how things go together. Good luck. St.

STEVENRANKIN said:

Well, to be honest, I had the seat on my 78 RS recovered after an accident at a local car seat shop. I had a new cover I sourced from Flat Racer in the UK, (a BMW solo seat) and the shop was able to cut foam they had on hand to fit. I would never know it is not the "stock" foam in the seat.

If not a car shop, I bet you could find a custom motorcycle seat shop that would do it for you.

The hard part getting the cover right and you have taken care of that by buying the proper cover and stuff to go with it. Just be sure the guy doing the work has a good idea as to how things go together. Good luck. St.

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Thanks, Steve..... the only shop I've talked to (so far) wasn't interested in building a custom foam for my seat cover- they wanted to build both the foam and the cover. The search continues. Viejo

Lucky

I am lucky, I live near a city with multiple seat cover companies as well as a few custom bike shops. Good luck with the search. St.

Foam and Seat Cover

VIEJO said:

Thanks, Steve..... the only shop I've talked to (so far) wasn't interested in building a custom foam for my seat cover- they wanted to build both the foam and the cover. The search continues. Viejo

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Hola Viejo
Last year I bought the foam and seat cover from flatracer also. Very happy with both. I went to their website and I didn't see where they have any items listed for sale currently though.

Sargent Cycle Products?

Have you tried Sargent? They do make nice seats and refurbish old ones.

There are some interesting looking reproduction /5 seats on eBay for less than $300.00.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fr..._nkw=BMW+Dual+seat+R50/5+R60/5+R75/5&_sacat=0

Thanks!

Hola All,

Thanks for all the good input on this question!

What I'm finding with most upholstery shops is that they all want to do the foam first and then make the cover to fit the foam rather than build the foam to fit the existing (new)cover. I have a lead on a shop near me in Central Texas where the upholsterer is reputed to be capable of doing everything that nobody else wants to do..... my kind of shop. As soon as I get the pan back from the powder-coaters I'll give him a visit.

The reproduction seats on eBay are interesting.... until you get to the shipping charges.

As a back-up plan I'm also on the notification list from Siebenrock in case they ever have the replacement foam or repro seats available again although I don't hold out much hope for that.

Once again, thanks to everyone.

Viejo

Hi, I just re-covered my /5 seat. My foam was useable - I did a fair amt of research before got a seat cover from Siebenrock. It fit great, was closest match to original and went on without a hitch. I see they also have new foam...C

A trick to bring new life into foam is to steam it with one of those steamers used in sewing, learned this in an upholstery class I once took.

69zeff65 said:

Have you tried Sargent? They do make nice seats and refurbish old ones.

Click to expand...

The seat on my '72 R 75/5 was replaced by a Sargent (by the previous owner) and it is a great seat. I have the original seat which is in great shape, but I think the Sargent is possibly more comfortable, and it looks very much like the original. It has been 48 years since I sat on an original seat (I owned a '72 R 75/5 back then too), so I don't remember what it's comfort level was, but I expect it was pretty good. With the smaller toaster tank gas stops were more frequent anyway. I don't know if it would be worth trying to send my old seat to Texas as I am on the east coast of Canada and would probably cost more than is feasible.