A REAL Solo Saddle for the (Current) V7

[Dirk_S]

My thoughts would be to retain the entire seat pan while making it “look” like a solo seat. My local seat guy can make the rider part more “tractor seat”, or Russel Day Long looking, and then put a hard foam to create a flat top, add a layer of hard material like polycarbonate, or plywood and cover in Vinyl. You could embed spacers in the foam to secure a light rack to the pan, and make a flat bottom pillion to mount on the rack or remove the rack and have captured nuts in the pillion so it can replace the rack.

I thought about that as an option, inspired by the solo saddle-fender rack combo that Triumph offers for their scramblers:





I may still attempt it, but my primary goal with this first attempt is to allow the rear fender the opportunity to be completely naked.

[redhawk47]

It might be expensive, but you might ask https://www.baakmotocyclettes.com/en/ about making one. 
They may like to add it to their product line.  They do make full length saddles and rear fenders.

Dan

[Dirk_S]

I'm almost certain they don't do one-offs. I've asked a couple other shops similar to them if they'd make a solo seat, and my findings are that well-known custom boutique shops focus on small batch stuff instead of individual clients. Just not worth their time, I suppose. Looking at their current offerings, it appears they don't touch the seat pan, just reupholster the entire seat. This would require some work on their end, of which the results they might not be too keen to have their name attached if the results sink for safety reasons or aesthetics. Heck, not even Corbin, Russell, or other seat builders will mess with a formula they already have down just to try to please one customer with work they can't guarantee won't backfire.

One of the other companies I reached out to was Unit Garage, who make some pretty cool parts for BMW, MG, Triumph, and Ducati. I saw in their V7 parts gallery, they were rocking a V7 with a solo seat in some promo shots. Reached out to them, and they wouldn't replicate it for me. One-off only, for the sake of promo:




BTW, they confirmed that they didn't touch the welded rear seat bracket; just tacked the rear rack over top.

[kingoffleece]

Eddy at 73Cycle in CT might be able to help.

[Chethro]

I would take the pan to a local boat or auto upholstery shop and talk to them about what you want to do. The worst that can happen is you waste a little time and they say no.

[Bulldog9]

I wonder if the Tonti Frame Solo Seat from Harpers would work?  You'd have to remove the V7 seat lock and weld the tangs for the rear bracket for the seat, but might work I have the seat on my Convert and it is well made and comfortable.





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[Dirk_S]

I wonder if the Tonti Frame Solo Seat from Harpers would work?  You'd have to remove the V7 seat lock and weld the tangs for the rear bracket for the seat, but might work I have the seat on my Convert and it is well made and comfortable.





.

Ha, I recall asking you via PM to test that fitment for me. I THINK you may have said it didn’t look promising, but Curtis H. assured me that the Tonti frames are just too wide for a Tonti solo seat to work on a small block without significant modification. That’s what led me to the V50 Police solo seat—same small block frame (for my intended purposes), but I wasn’t a\counting on the extra tank length of the V7 getting in the way. I think it quite possibly could have worked if I had been more willing to work out the front issue, but I just didn’t want to chop up a small block solo pan, as they’re pretty scarce in the States.

I have all the foam and fabric to begin building now. The plastic pan has enough contours throughout it, that I considered getting some pourable casting foam to even out the base. Smooth-On makes a product called Flex Foam-It FR7 for automotive seat foams and other applications, but I decided last night to just take the foam sheets I currently have and build the base up flat using smaller pieces.

I have a sheet of Minicel L200 (closed cell high density polyethylene), rebound carpet padding, and high density luxury foam.

I’ll be looking to the BMW /5 and /6 police solo seats for the primary look:







In other news, I have a V50 police solo seat pan and cushion I no longer need. Will be posting them for sale here eventually.

[Sean_Kelly]

I've been looking for that V7 Alce solo seat and rack combination ever since I saw those promotional images. I saw this post while browsing yesterday and decided I'd revisit modifying my old stock seat like the OP. I replaced my standard bench back in 2017 with the anniversario brown one, so the old seat has just been sitting in my garage ever since.

Here's where I'm at with mine:

 


   


I think I'm going to attach my rack to the 4 threaded holes that are mysteriously available in the seat pan. I'll probably cut a little bit of the seat pan plastic near the bottom of the pan and add a grab rail around the back that attaches to the frame ends to finish off the design and provide a little more strength.

Something like this:




Thanks for the inspiration!

[greer]

Cool!  We had the kit Dirk mentioned on a Bonneville some years ago; it was a nice outfit and handy too, and would be such a neat option for the V7.  Welcome to the forum, and please keep those pictures coming.

Sarah     

[Dimitri_Harkov]

Thats looks like the most practical approach, Sean_Kelly.
I really like that!

Keep us updated, guys :)

Cheers,
D.

[nursed]

This looks great and the approach I've been thinking about. Did you just cut the back foam off? I'd be tempted to cut down the pan and use some industrial velcro to hold the seat in place. Ebay used V7 seats now...

I've been looking for that V7 Alce solo seat and rack combination ever since I saw those promotional images. I saw this post while browsing yesterday and decided I'd revisit modifying my old stock seat like the OP. I replaced my standard bench back in 2017 with the anniversario brown one, so the old seat has just been sitting in my garage ever since.

Here's where I'm at with mine:

 


   


I think I'm going to attach my rack to the 4 threaded holes that are mysteriously available in the seat pan. I'll probably cut a little bit of the seat pan plastic near the bottom of the pan and add a grab rail around the back that attaches to the frame ends to finish off the design and provide a little more strength.

Something like this:




Thanks for the inspiration!

[Dirk_S]

Hot dang, for some reason I don’t recall catching these last replies.

Sean_Kelly, nice approach! Looks quite similar to the Triumph solo.

I had taken mine to a custom moto seat “specialist”. I showed them what I wanted done, and they eagerly agreed to work on it. A year later, they barely touched it, and got pissy at me when I came by to get a refund. They gave me the chopped seat pan and quipped “take your money, just get it out of our hair”.

I once got ahold of a V50 III police solo saddle, and thought about modifying that to fit on the V7. Man, I wish I had stuck with simply trimming it up to fit, but by the time I was done with it, all that was left was the pan. So, the plan remains to eventually get to this build; I’m just nervous about making sure the seat contours to my rump well enough. Plus, other pressing projects jumped up in queue: rebuilding the motor, installing the enduro forks (soon!), building various size wheels (soon!), sidecar mounts, etc. Then the BMW airhead came into my life, and just recently I finished repairing a salvage V7 III. Anyway—hoping to get to the solo seat and fender rack combo by year’s end.