Honda CM200 Cafe Racer Project: Mounting the seat

One of the challenges of converting any bike is figuring out how to mount the cafe seat you just bought.

Dime City Cycles of Florida actually sells a HDPE marine grade board for about $75 to help you mount a cafe seat to a frame. Problem with that was it was too wide for what I needed. Their kit was meant for a bigger bike like a CB750.

But their kit did give me a great idea on how I can install my new seat. Here's what I did.

Went to Lowes Home Improvement and found one of these. It's composite wood used for wood decks. It was on sale for $13 for a 5"x8' piece. You can use any wood working tools to cut it down. I actually ended up using a hacksaw for most of the cutting I needed.

I took some cardboard, did some measuring and I figured out the approximate size I needed to cut down the board to.

 

I had to make sure I cleared the tank mount by cutting out a section of the board. The cuts are pretty crude, that's because I used a hacksaw. I eventually bought a power tool to help me with that. But I didn't use it until later.

Hack job on the fiber glass...yikes! I cleaned this up with the new tool I bought. But I also had to cut out a section for the tank mount.

So now here's the fun part, mounting the board onto the frame. Since I was using nuts and bolts, I wanted to make sure the head of the bolts were flushed on the board so it wouldn't get in the way of the fiberglass seat. I counter sunk the bolts.

Here's the underside of the board. You'll notice that I bolts further in. In fact, I'll have another set of bolts closer to the tank. The bolts are mounted with rubberished P-clamps that you can find at Home Depot for $2 for a pair.

I also counter sunk the screws that would attach the seat to the board.

Once I knew the seat could be mounted, I then went to work on painting the darn thing. Based on videos I've seen on Youtube, people highly recommended Rustoleum for a paint brand. Got some primer and enamel. Here's the seat with some primer and enamel. I didn't bother painting the whole board since you won't actually see it.

Here's how the Honda CM 200 Cafe Racer Project Bike looks right now. I placed the seat pads just on top and didn't bother installing the rivets just so I can see how it would look. I made a side mount for the plate. But that is going to change since the tail light I ordered from Hong Kong will be placed right under the seat with a plate mount.

The seat looks pretty good on the bike so far. I can't wait to get my new lights from Hong Kong and install them. The paint turned out...ok. I figured it was ok for now.

I'm pretty close to getting done with the bike. One quick note about the new light I have on order. I wanted to stick with period appropriate lighting, so that meant no LEDs. Why? LEDs are more current, newer bikes have them and I figured iridescent lights on an older bike would be a better look.