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General Category >> Rubber Side Down! >> Aftermarket Seat for S40
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Message started by JohnR on 10/09/08 at 11:42:37

Title: Aftermarket Seat for S40
Post by JohnR on 10/09/08 at 11:42:37

First time for to modify my stock 2006 S40 . . . is there a really comfortable seat out there that does not cost an arm and a leg that will fit the 2006 S40. I see many pictures of modified bikes and the seats all look sooooo good!

Title: Re: Aftermarket Seat for S40
Post by YonuhAdisi on 10/09/08 at 11:46:50

Unfortunately most of the seats you have been seeing on the Savages on this site were modified by the owners. There isn't a direct bolt on comfortable seat for this bike.

Title: Re: Aftermarket Seat for S40
Post by JohnR on 10/09/08 at 12:22:05

Thanks . . . that's what I kinda suspected. So what do you do? Do you measure your seat or can you just find one you like and make it fit? Do you suppose there ones out there that are better suited to the S40 with minimal modifications necessary ?

Title: Re: Aftermarket Seat for S40
Post by YonuhAdisi on 10/09/08 at 12:32:19

I'm really not the best person to ask on that subject as I am still using the stock Savage seat, but there are quite a few on here who have done work to their seats. Hopefully one or more of them will chime in.

Title: Re: Aftermarket Seat for S40
Post by seviersavage on 10/09/08 at 12:51:25

I went with a sportster seat I got off of e-bay, 60 dollars plus shipping I think. It is a two up one piece seat from a 2002 sportster. Supposedly 2004 and newer fit our bikes but I took a chance on this one and was able to make it fit very well with a little modification. It is tons better for me than the stock seat. It is wider and has a real kind of a back to it so you are locked in to your riding position, with the stock seat I was always squirming around trying to get comfortable.
Seviersavage

Title: Re: Aftermarket Seat for S40
Post by verslagen1 on 10/09/08 at 14:50:02

2C373D3C2B2D313C3B3536363D686968590 wrote:

So how much do your arms and legs cost?
Now for a little toe you can put on a HD sportster seat. Looks great, feels a little better than a stock '96.
or you can go with a police seat for a little more. And those are made for all day comfort.
or check out paladin's solo seat.
and then there's robertomoes vrod seat.

Title: Re: Aftermarket Seat for S40
Post by FreeSpirit on 10/09/08 at 14:59:58

Robertomoe's vrod seat? :-?

Anyone have a picture of it?

Title: Re: Aftermarket Seat for S40
Post by FreeSpirit on 10/09/08 at 15:12:34

Scroll down this link and you'll see a couple of reasonbly priced seats.
One of them is 1/2 to 1 inch wider than ours(which is the one I like):

http://www.crc2onlinecatalog.com/chopper.htm

Of course,I'm not sure what I'll wind up buying...yet.

And someone may know more about them than me.

Title: Re: Aftermarket Seat for S40
Post by EssForty on 10/09/08 at 15:25:07

I picked up a Harley Police Seat with the Air Ride cylinder. I have not installed it yet but I have a picture of my 2006 with the seat sitting on it to give you an idea of the scale. The way the Police seat works is that there is a cylindrical rubber bladder that goes between the bike frame and the seat frame. The bladder is pressurized by a small canister that can be filled up from any air line at a gas station or a home compressor. So you can dial in the ride. Cops spend up to 12 hrs on this seat (OK...except for donut stops every 90 minutes ;D)

My challenge is not in mounting the seat, but in making sure my changes are reversible if I want to go back to stock.

Gort has done a nice job with a fully sprung Police Seat, but the air ride is a bit different so I have to come up with a few different approaches. Anyway, if I can find a free weekend to work on it I think it will make for a very comfy ride. And I spent less than $70 bucks for the seat and air ride mechanism. Which is about what my left arm is worth from my fingers to the elbow.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2NU0p82vl5Y/SN4ZBbRqGiI/AAAAAAAAAEw/-OkQqhELdZs/s400/DSC_0003.JPG

Title: Re: Aftermarket Seat for S40
Post by Jay on 10/09/08 at 21:35:02

Comfort is so subjective. "What's wrong with the current seat?", is often a good place to start. How long is your inseam? Sometimes the hieght mod is all that is required to create a little more comfort. I reworked the seat pan on mine, to get more of a "spoon" effect, and also raised the front using the hieght mod. I've also added EdL's forward extentions (hghly recommend) to complete the seat comfort mods with the existing seat. If, after all this, I still feel the need to modify further, I'll go with a sprung solo.

Title: Re: Aftermarket Seat for S40
Post by EssForty on 10/10/08 at 02:29:15

Jay's got a good point. Start with the seat lift mod and see if you like it better. I thought it was a great improvement for my daily commute.

How long are you riding at a time? I ride 30 minutes to work and maybe an hour or so each way on my weekend rides before I stop and do a little walking and stretching. I found a great deal on my Police Seat and figured it would be a fun project but it was not driven by gross dissatisfaction with the stock seat and lift mod.

There are a number of ways to improve seat comfort :

First, you can increase the amount of contact surface area, which reduces the pressure on any given part of your butt. The problem is that as you make the seat wider you extend out laterally over the frame and have to find outboard supports like the head of the shock absorbers to keep your wider seat from twisting. Gort documented his solution using outboard springs here:

http://www.richard-perry.com/HDSeat/HDPoliceSeatConversion.html

Secondly, you can change the resiliency of the foam in the existing seat. Amateur upholsterers make the mistake of just jamming in more cheap foam, or carving up the materials in some new way, only to be disappointed when the whole thing breaks down. If you're reupholstering your seat, ask for an HR (high resiliency) foam, with an IFD (indentation force deflection) of 2.0-2.4.

Thirdly, you can use non-foam viscoelastic materials to redistribute the pressure over top the foam. For example, the AirHawk air pillow or gel pads do that. Note that more gel is not always better. Gels absorb some shock, and redistribute your weight but do not provide the same dynamics as foam.

Fourth, you can provide mechanical elastic supports like springs or air ride cylinders.

So you've got lots of options, but there are no cheap direct replacement seats out there that bolt right on. The low volume of Savage seats, (and the fact that most owners are DIY cheapskates like me,) means there is not much of a market for aftermarket solutions.