Seat Repair

Well, I was out on the trails on my 2016 Kawasaki KLR 650 this week and I noticed that the seat cover was coming undone on the right side. At the time I couldn't tell if it was a rip or just staples popping. The seat doesn't come off easily; one needs to remove the two side covers and unbolt the seat from the frame. A rip would be a problemo. I can replace staples if that's the case.

So this morning I got a chance to remove the seat and take a peek at the problem. The good news was that a bunch of staples had popped out, as opposed to a tear in the fabric.

Tools for a simple repair like this are a stapler (with 8mm staples), clamps, a few other things and a hair dryer. Why the hair dryer? Cuz you want to be able to stretch the fabric, and heating it up helps. You don't want to stretch it too much; comparing to the other side gives you a sense how much.

Stretch, clamp, staple...

Sometimes if the staple doesn't go in all the way a hammer on a flat pin punch will get it in set well.

Reinstall seat and viola...

I may have to do the whole seat one of these days as I'm currently looking at the Seat Concepts foam and cover as a potential replacement for the stock seat. I have a Seat Concepts seat with special gripper material on my Versys 1000 and like it a lot. That's what I'd like, the gripper material for the KLR650. However, you've got to get the foam too because the KLR650 Seat Concepts seat is a little wider in the saddle area. This will be for a future post for sure if I pull the trigger on a Seat Concepts seat.