The bike started life as a two seater. I wanted it to be a single seater – so I could take of all the extra footpegs and framework, and of course make this HUGE seat a lot more compact and low profile.

I guess I liked the look of the  BRAT style motorbikes – classic twin shock machines with a flat seat and minimal lines of a café racer.

So I took the vinyl cover off – it was lightly glued, indicating that it was a re-skin by an earlier owner.

The next obvious step was to cut downthe seat pan and shape the foam.

This is the plastic seat pan, and you can see the leftover staple lines. Plus the rusty seat mount.

No matter how long I looked at this, I wasn’t happy with using even this cut-down version.

According to the local road rules, I can build my own seat as long as it uses the original seat mounting points.

So I formulate the idea that I can make one out of a sheet of plywood and a few layers of some sort of foam.

After watching a bunch of YouTube videos on the subject, and getting sidetracked by this Ichiban Moto video, I started to feel confident that I could make my own seat from scratch. I started by cutting out a sheet of EVA foam to get the shape and have something to stare at for a few hours. Once I had the shape, I made a plywood base.

I bought some 12mm PE30 foam and laminated a few sheets with contact adhesive to get the right height. For the top layer, I created a split piece with a strip of softer foam down the middle, to soften the blows on my nether regions. At this point, it’s just an oversize block shape.

The seat needs to mate with the original mounting points – a slot at the front, and 2 rubber spots at the rear. So I bolted on a piece of steel, and bent/cut it to fit.

I added a sort of rubber bumper strip around the plywood, and glued on the laminated foam. Once it was on the bike, I shaped the foam with a hacksaw, then a surform tool, then some coarse sandpaper. The rear sat on the rubber bumpers, and I held it in position with a pair of bungee cords around the original mounting points, which I had thankfully not cut off during the bobbing.

I spent ages looking for some black vinyl to cover the new seat – then one day I spotted an old couch thrown in the street for council pickup. Presto! I now had several meters of upholstery grade black vinyl. I also inherited a ridiculous amount of fine, loose, skanky old foam filling, which flew everywhere when I first unzipped the cushion.

Out with the sewing machine. It’s just a cheap old sewing machine, but did a surprisingly good job. I made a rough pattern from an old sheet, tweaked and modified that, took it apart, and used that as a pattern for the vinyl. Even so, I still needed to unpick and redo the vinyl cover before I was happy with the result. The coverings were simply stapled onto the plywood base.

Now the result was fine… but I really thought it would look much finer if I covered it in leather. My budget didn’t stretch to buying a hide. So I went on a scavenger hunt, and discovered a second-hand women’s jacket at the local op-shop for $20. With some judicious planning and some careful cutting, I made a copy of the vinyl pattern and added the leather as a second skin. Now I have the waterproof vinyl and the sharp leather appearance.

I bought a new chain and sprocket.

Seemed like a good idea at the time, and eBay is always just a click away…

Turns out, the nice shiny new chain was a bit wider than the old one. All the high-spec roller bearings and such like added a few millimetres here and there. So although it fit in a theoretical sort of fashion, I was left with only one option to make it fit in a way that allowed the chain to actually move – cut away half the gearbox casing.

So, the chain goes back in the box, and I revert to making the old parts as “new again” as possible.

This was just plain tedious. First, wirebrush all the mess off the sprockets, so they look all shiny. Then soak the chain in a bath of kerosene for a day or so.
It comes out looking like nothing has changed.
Sigh.
So you get the wirebrush out again, and scrub off the rust and gunk. Then you cover the chain in oil and grease. rummage it around for a while, and put all the bits back where they belong.
Twitch the tensioners on the axle until the chain freeplay is about a half inch or so. Tighten the nuts and bolts, and apply the cotter pins etc.

Next time I’ll take measurements before buying replacement parts.

Maybe.

The 1982 GSX has rear brakes.

That’s pretty much all I can say about it.

The rear brake pedal is connected to the rear brake hub with a metal rod. Step on the pedal, the rod is pulled, and the rod in turn pulls on a lever in the rear hub. This lever has a cam that spreads the brake shoes inside the hub.

Once I cleaned up the metal (the usual wire brushing and sandpaper) I replaced the brake shoes. I’m not 100% convinced that this improved the braking, but it’s a bit a guesswork anyway since it takes forever to bed the brake linings in. Suffice to say, while rear brakes are the “safest” to use on a bike, they’re certainly not the primary stopping apparatus on this old classic.

While working on the brakes, I also cleaned up the rear axle.

Once the bare metal was primed, It was time for a coat of gloss white to match the rims.

My brother came for a visit.
We decided it would be fun to take the motorcycle apart.

At the time, I didn’t have a workshop space — we did this in the shared garage space of the apartment building. Thanks to our understanding neighbours.

A couple of interesting rust spots were uncovered – but most of it was surface rust, and I dealt with that in the rebuild process.

By the end of the day, we had it stripped down to the most basic of frame pieces.