The original seat was still on the bike but the seat cover had been replaced in the past with a non original one that showed some small rips. Luckily the bike came with a new original seat cover with the white "Honda" letters/logo on the back.
The seat still had the original chrome trim piece at the bottom but the chrome layer was flaking. I managed to remove it without damaging it and started sanding all leftover flaking plastic/chrome bits off. I ended up with a nice cream white trim. I remembered I had a roll of chrome/aluminium tape laying around in the shed and when I found it I used a small piece to find out if it looked good enough... and it did :)
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Honda CB500K1 original seat
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Honda CB500K1 original seat including chrome strip
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So I taped the whole bottom strip with one piece of chrome/aluminium tape. I got some wrinkles but they were mainly on the inside so invisible. I was happy with the results and later on I can always easy replace it with an original new one... when I find one that is ...
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| Honda CB500K1 cleaning and sanding original seat trim |
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| CB500K1 original seat trim trial with aluminium tape |
Ok back to the seat.. I removed all parts and took the old cover and foam off. The foam was in resonable condition but had some small holes here and there. I filled them with some foam bits from a camping mat.
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| CB500K1 original seat taken apart |
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Honda CB500K1 seat foam repair with pieces of a camping matress
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Then I used the grinder with a copper wire brush to get rid of all the old paint and rust on the seat pan. On one site you can see some small rust holes but nothing too mayor.
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| CB500K1 original rusty seat taken apart |
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CB500K1 original seat and battery holder back to bare metal
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| Honda CB500K1 original seat back to bare metal |
Then I cleaned the seatpan with some wax and grease remover and painted it gloss black with POR15.
My neighbour Larry told me an upholstery trick to glue chux wipes all over the seat, that way the new seat cover will look smoother after installation. It's best to use spray on glue (see pic below) for this.
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| Honda CB500K1 original seat foam |
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Using Chux cloth wipes
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Honda CB500K1 seat foam with a layer of Chux on top
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Another guy close to work helped me put the new seat cover over the seat without wrinkles (See original installation instructions at the bottom of this post).
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| Honda CB500K1 new seat cover with Honda logo |
The next thing to do was restore the seat strap. I had a new strap but I liked the original one better so I cleaned it and took the old hardware off. The little nuts were completely rusted and it took some WD40 and a vice to get them separated from the bolts.
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| Honda CB500K1 taking apart the seat strap |
I also bought some new hardware for the strap at 4into.com including the chromed retaining bits at the end.
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| Honda CB500K1 rebuilding the orignal seat |
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| Honda CB500K1 rebuilding the orignal seat |
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Honda CB500K1 orignal seat rebuild
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| Honda CB500K1 orignal seat rebuild |
Maybe not like a perfect new seat but at least it's mostly original including the letters at the back which are missing most of the time when buying a brand new replica seat.
The new seat cover came with an A4 with installation instructions. For those who are interested you can find a copy of them below (tip: right click on pics to see them in a bigger size).
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| CB500K1 seat cover installation instructions |
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| CB500K1 seat cover installation instructions |
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