How to: Install new seat cover and/or foam

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yamarider

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I just did this on my dual sport and thought it might be useful to anyone considering replacing their seat cover and/or their seat foam. Everything should apply the same for the warrior and raptor 350, and any other motorcycle or quad, a seat is a seat. If your seat foam is worn out, rotten, missing, or smells like piss, CEET sells replacement foam. Replacement seat covers, including gripper covers, are all over the place for the Warrior and Raptor 350.

First to start, a general list of required materials. You'll need your stock seat, removed from the bike, and a decent sized work surface. Obviously you'll need your new seat cover, and if you're replacing the seat foam, you'll need a new replacement for that as well and some kind of glue to fasten the foam to the pan. You'll need a heavy duty staple gun and the proper staples to go with it. An air powered one would be ideal, but I didn't have one and the standard spring powered one worked good enough to get the job done for me. Use 1/4" or shorter staples, any longer than that won't make it any better and just makes it easier for them to come out the other side into your hand or jab your leg when you're riding it. You'll need some method of removing the old staples from the cover, a simple flat screwdriver to pry them out worked well for me.

Recommended, but not required, is a cool beverage (Troeg's Mad Elf Ale and 1/2 of a cherry slushy are pictured below), a heat gun, and an extra set of hands to help are a good idea. Just keep the extra set of hands off your beer!
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The first step is easy, remove the old seat cover. Not much instruction needed here, just pry up the staples holding the cover and remove it.
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Got it? Good. If you're replacing the foam the next step is to remove it from the plastic pan underneath. If you're not replacing the foam, skip ahead to the cover installation.

Your results may vary, but apparently suzuki glue stops sticking after about 15 years, mine came right off without a fight.
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The next step is to glue the new seat foam onto the pan. Before you glue anything, test fit the foam on the pan, and make adjustments if necessary. I had to do some trimming around the edges to get it to fit the way I wanted.

I chose to use Guts Racing's spray on seat foam glue. I followed the instructions included, spaying it on both the foam and seat pan and waiting until it became tacky before sticking the 2 halves together. I don't have any photos of this because I was in a struggle against time to peel the foam back off and attempt to re-align it on the pan about 3 times and gluing it to my arm once before I got it close enough. I would recommend applying the glue to only the center, flat area of the pan and foam, and gluing down the side wings later once everything is lined up, that's where my trouble came from. Like I said, I don't really have any pics of this process, but you can see my feelings about this glue afterwards...
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The next step, after the glue has dried on the foam (if applicable), is to install the cover. This is where the extra set of hands would be the most helpful. I did this myself with good results, so it's possible without help, just a little more difficult. You may find a different technique that works better for installing the cover but the way I did it worked well for me.

The first step I did was aligning the cover over the seat, paying special attention to the front part of the seat. Throw some staples along the front edge of the cover.
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The next step I did was fastening the back of the cover to the back of the seat. Stretch the cover tight enough that it doesn't dip down in the middle, but not so tight that it's actually flexing the seat. Line it up and put some staples across the back edge.
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Next, stretch the wrinkles out of the cover as you pull them down to the point at the bottom of the seat, towards the front. This is where the heat gun may be helpful, warm materials will tend to be more submissive and stretch easier. Just don't get too crazy with the heat and melt it. Staple along these corners on both sides when you feel like you have it stretched tight enough.
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Continue and finish up the rest of the seat, pulling a small section tight and stapling it as you go. Finish the front of the seat first, then work your way from the corner towards the back. At the corners you can reduce the bunching up by making small folds around the contour of the edge instead of one big fold. You may need to go back around the seat after you have it all fastened on and re-staple parts of it that still have wrinkles and folds in it. When you're done it should look something like the photo below, a staple every inch or so, with more at the front and back edges where it gets stressed the most. If the staple doesn't go in all the way by the power of the staple gun use a small tack hammer to tap them in the rest of the way.
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The last step is to install the seat back on the ride and test it out. Here's what my results were. I probably have about 90 minutes of work invested in this total, doing it by myself.

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Great write up Graig. Its a sticky! I wanted to do this when I re-covered my seat for my quad. I took all the pics along the way as well. Just never got around to uploading and writing up the walk though. THANKS!
 
I love recovering seats. I grab my electric staple gun, 12 pack of Rolling Rock, put on a shoot em up movie and get to work. lol
 
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