Bocaj Industries - 1971 Honda CL350 Cafe Racer
Now that the electrical is well on its way to being done, I have the opportunity to focus on the seat for a while. The first step for me for creating a new seat pan is to have a nice flat surface to work off of. So, this brings up the first issue...the battery. As it sits in it's factory location, it sticks up about an inch and a half above the frame. This is no good if you want your seat pan to sit flat on the frame. So, I made two small brackets and modified the battery box to attach to these brackets. After reinstalling the battery box with it's new mounting points it now sits about half an inch below the frame.
Next, I was able to get some sheet metal and lay it flat on the frame to get a rough sketch of the shape I needed to cut out. I got the metal cut to a nice shape I liked and then carefully rolled the edges for a nice finished look. Finally I added the little kick-up on the tail of the seat. Fits great!
I had been on the fence about the design of this seat for a while as to weather or not it should have some kind of cowl on the back or if it should just be flat. After some heavy duty staring I decided to mock up a cowl with some cereal boxes which work awesome for sheet metal mock up by the way. I fell in love with the result. Now I have a nice template to use to cut out the cowl section from sheet metal. I'll tig weld it all together when I have all the pieces cut out and ready to go. One last little touch to complete the look and line of the bike is I raised the back of the tank about 1.5 inches so the line on the bottom of the tank now flows nicely into the new seat. I'll need to make a bracket to keep the tank in this new position. I also still need to work on the front section of the seat to create a small curved cowl to fit over the gas tank mounting brackets. So, a little more work to do on the mock-up stage of the seat and then some fun welding in my future.
-Bocaj
