This review was contributed by Joakim Roubert. Thanks Joakim!
Background
I was not happy with the stock seat and passenger pillow on my 95 Sportster. I (6′) felt like I would like to have some more room for my legs, and my girlfriend was not too comfortable riding as a passenger. Not feeling like spending $600 on a new deluxe seat (but feeling like having one), I started to check the second hand market.
Reading the excellent Sportster mailing list at sportster.org, it seemed like Mustang and Corbin are the two brands people seem to be most satisfied with, and that the stock seat is crap compared to these. (I would like to stress that I have no affiliation whatsoever with these companies.)
The previous owner had, like me, a 95 Sportster, so I thought it would be a no-brainer to mount this bolt-on seat on my bike. I was wrong. (Well, perhaps not about the brain stuff, but it sure was not bolt-on…)
The seat would not fit!
I thought I had asked the previous owner if he had the large 3.3 gallon tank (like I do), but obviously I had forgotten. After suggestions from the very helpful people at the Sportster mailing list, I had to admit the seat was made for the smaller tank (that was stock for the 95). In order to let the seat come down properly over the frame, the seat would have to be pushed almost 1/2″ further, but the hard plastic inside the seat made that impossible.
The great people at the Sportster mailing list then told me Corbin seats are not only well-known for being good seats, but they (I quote) “are legendary for not fitting well”. Also encouraged by a friend who has been working a lot with old British sports cars, I decided to:
1. Remove some of the hard interior in the front of the seat.
2. Move the seat’s rear mount further backwards in order to not have to modify the bike to make it fit.
Customization
I drilled out just as many pop rivets needed for me to flip the cover back from the front. Then I could use a handsaw and a knife to cut of the front of the hard plastic interior. After testing the modified seat on the bike for clearance, I could just to flip the cover back and re-attach it to the seat with new pop rivets.
Results
Before
After
There are several things that are good with the new seat:
- I have about 1-2″ more room for my legs.
- Seat is way more comfortable than stock.
- GF can now ride passenger for hours instead of minutes without getting all numb.
- It looks better than the stock setup.
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