Problem: I’ve got a sore butt from the old stock seat and gel seats cost upwards of $200 to $300+, even used ones on e-bay, and I’d rather keep that money as ‘padding’ in my wallet thank you very much.

Solution; Gel the existing seat myself.

What I used:
Pliers (to pull the old staples out)
Flathead Screwdriver (to help pry up the staples)
A marker
Spray on Adhesive (I used 3M 77 spray)
Gel padding (I used the motorcycle pad from this company, SHOCKtec, it’s a gel that doesn’t need to be ‘bagged’) Standard  size (12"x18") $34.95
Foam Padding for filler to smooth edges of the gel when it is on top of the seat, I used SHOCKtec Air2Gel HD from the same company, 1/8"   $16.60 half roll.
Scissors
Staple Gun
Silicone Spray (to spray on the scissor when you cut the gel padding, the SHOCKtec people were nice enough to tell me this little trick to make it easier to cut)

Here’s the subject before the operation.



First I turned it over and marked where the cover was fitting now, I think I want to purposely leave it looser than those marks when I reattach it because it will have more padding under there and I don’t want the cover to rip from holding down too much more padding.



Pull the staples and remove the cover



Pull up the pad and turn it over to remove the plastic baggy water protection



Cut Gel Padding to fit.  I purposefully did NOT cover the back part of the seat that comes up.  I stopped at the base of that ridge because I don’t want the seat to be pushing me any farther forward when sitting on it, so I covered directly under my butt space and in front of it when I cut my egg shaped seat covering.






Tan foam:


After I cut and re-cut the gel padding to the exact shape I wanted it I peeled off the blue plastic sheeting you can see in the pictures (the gel padding has some sticky glue under that sheet and it is there to help hold the pad in place, but I also sprayed the entire top of the foam seat with spay adhesive and then pushed the gel padding sticky side down on top of the seat.

I then cut a larger oval of the tan 1/8 inch foam to cover the gel, I want it to overlap the gel under it so that it will round off the edges of the gel when under the seat cover.  I sprayed both the gel padding top and the bottom of the foam with adhesive and stuck the foam on top



The green line shows you the size of the gel padding underneath so you could see the size difference between the two.



I then re-covered the seat with the water baggy shield and then the old seat cover, stapling it everywhere it was stapled before and making sure to not pull it all the way up to the old lines I had made to mark the old location, (will have to wait and see how long it lasts before it tears a hole and I’ll just recover the seat with the leather from an old jacket or something like that….

Here’s my new and improved Gel Seat on the bike



I've got plenty of gel padding and foam padding left to do the back pad and sissy bar seat as well.  Even though I bought the regualr seat pad size from SHOCKtec they sent me plenty of gel to get the job done, they were extremely helpful on this as well, very courteous and very fast shipping to boot, I highly recomend their prodect and their customer service.

thumperclone wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:07:


It feels firmer, holds you up better even while you are pushing the cushion down while sitting on it.  I feel like I am sitting slightly higher (I suppose I am higher) but I'm 5'11" and the extra space is a good thing for me.

I got used to the changed seat real fast because the seat doesn't feel like it's under-padded anymore, it holds me better and I can slide around better, this might be because I didn't re-enforce the upswing at the back of the seat, it's still there though and it holds me in place put it doesn't feel like it's pushing me forward.

I won't be looking for a new seat anymore, this is doing what I wanted (but I still might have to recover it if the old cover pops...)

Thanks so much for all the pics and the info.  I have been looking for a gel manufacturer to do this exact thing for some time.  Now that I have the links, I'll be able to redo my seat and then I will hopefully be able to ride for more than 20 minutes before I have to stop due to an aching tail bone.

Balderdash-

Just completed the gel pad installation last night and it went very smoothly following your method.  Thanks immensely for the time and effort to "document" the process complete with photos and post it.  Took me about 2 hours total from removing the seat to re-installing.  

Great mod that should be added to the technical section for others to have ready access to.

Thanks again; highly recommended improvement.

UPDATE:

I know this is an old thread, but I sold the red Suzuki 650 and bought a '08 Suzuki 650 and wanted to redo my seat again, so I looked up this thread to make sure I was remembering everything.

Happy to report that I never felt the urge to replace the seat again and the seat cover never tore, after 17,000+ miles were put on it after that mod, sold the bike because the engine was needing more work than I am willing to do this winter (drive the bike daily, can't afford the down time).

BTW: I had to search the forum for this thread, I thought it was in the technical under mods, but didn't find it there    :'(  Maybe it could go in the DIY section?

Yes It's a good DIY article and should be in the tech section.
It's in my favorite's till then.

Have you thought about adding the tailbone relief mod?

verslagen1 wrote on 09/18/10 at 08:37:38:


If you mean a V cut or a hole for the tailbone, yes, I'm thinking about it for my new seat, but to be honest, I never felt the need for it with the old seat, just always looking for improvements and it seems the manufactured seats have all moved to some idea of allowing the tailbone to sink further down without pressure.

I had the tailbone ache, so I bought some memory foam at WalMart and had a guy install it over the old original foam. (His idea) I told him my problem and he suggested one layer only. Since he has done this for 40 years, I gave it a try. It is 1 1/2 inches and works like a charm. That was about a year ago. Still works. His labor was $20 and he took care of a tear on the side of the seat.