Seat Covers

My seat has been real good to me. It is an aftermarket Travelcade Road Sofa with a backrest. The seat pan is showing signs of wear and some minor cracking and the foam is well broken in at this point (best we can tell the seat is 15 years old.)

It is not made by Travelcade anymore, but there are similar seats out there. One of the best features is the built in/removable backrest. It is adjustable and pulls out when my passenger needs more room.

This is the bike it originally came off. The '81 wrecked bike. That PO took the backrest off and modified it to fit a passenger sissy bar (which broke off shortly after we got it home.





The PO removed the part that connected it to the seat. :head bang:

So, I installed the backrest on my original trunk. The girls said it was quite comfy!



At the time, I found a tag inside of the seat that called it a "Road Sofa" so i assumed it was a Saddleman Road Sofa. Close, but no. Back in '08, I called Saddleman who did not recognize the seat number. I described the seat and they said it wasn't theirs. I explained I was looking for the backrest hardware and they put me in touch with the vendor that supplied their backrests.

He did not have the same backrest, but he had a similar one that would fit. He sent it and it fit! But I never knew who made it.

Fast forward, I have finally tracked down the vendor of the actual backrest. It is a Diamond Customs Seat backrest!



My point? I want to recover the seat, but it is not an original Honda seat. I have an original Honda seatpan for an '82. I can get the Saddleman seat cover for it and just staple it on the pan. But I want to be able to transfer the backrest.

Back in '13, a friend gave me a seat cover that was exactly what I was looking for, but it turned out to be for a GL1000 seat pan and was way too short for the GL1100 pan.



Here is a pic of my current seat (on the left) the Travelcade Seat cover and the '82 seat pan.

Utopia seats sells a seat kit for their drivers backrest which, lo and behold, is exactly the cushion that was on the '81 backrest originally. They are showing a kit to install it on an original Honda seat:



But, the hardware on the back of their backrest is different that the hardware on my Diamond Custom Seat backrest. :head bang:

Utopia sells a kit to install a "removable" backrest. I am hoping that kit is the same one that the Diamond seat uses. Thye look similar.



Utopia is closed for the day. I will call them next week. But it looks like I might be able to get a new kit, add it to an original seat pan and then add a Saddleman seat cover and be on my way?

I should have started this thread with the fact that we noticed how comfortable the seat was on the '81 1100 Standard we sold compared to my Travelcade seat. Plus, I really like the look of the OEM seat pan with the Saddleman double seat. I rode one other bike with one and they sure are comfortable plus the passenger gets more seat and padding than what I currently have.

Again, this bike is the inspiration:

I got hold of Utopia and they do not think their bracket/foundation unit will work for this backrest. Looks like I have to try Diamond Custom Seats again and see what they have. Worse case scenario, I pull the bracket out of the Travelcade seat and modify it to fit the Honda seat.

[url=https://www.classicgoldwings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=192072#p192072:2ybxtulj said:

mcgovern61 » Mon Jun 19, 2017 11:07 pm[/url]":2ybxtulj]
I got hold of Utopia and they do not think their bracket/foundation unit will work for this backrest. Looks like I have to try Diamond Custom Seats again and see what they have. Worse case scenario, I pull the bracket out of the Travelcade seat and modify it to fit the Honda seat.

Click to expand...

That would be my first choice since it works and is on hand. opcorn:

Understood. Except that I may end up ruining the seat trying to remove the bracket. The seat pan on the OEM seat and the Travelcade seat are different.

Dennis Kirk sells the newer version of the Travelcade Road Sofa with backrest. It looks like Travelcade is using the same design on the pan and backrest mount. DK has a good picture of the pan and it looks like the backrest bracket is attached the same way as the one I have (notice the 4 rivets in the bottom of the pan).





It might be worth trying to pull the seat cover off to see how the bracket is mounted on the other side of the pan.