TOPIC:

Anybody tried vinyl repair kits to patch small tears in your seat?

Good question...I was thinking of doing that as well. Any tips on how to get a good result would be greatly appreciated as well.

I fixed a few tears in my seat last fall. I think if you take your time and do a good job it can come out okay. Not great but okay. I mainly wanted to keep water from getting into the foam until I either have it reappolstered or ordering a new seat cover.

What kit did you use? Can it be done without taking the seat cover off? I have two small tears in my little GS300L and the bike just isn't worth buying a new seat for.

I used a kit from the auto parts store on my seat. You have to apply a base first, it's like silicone or something. When that dries you put the black putty on it and heat it with a patch over it. It turned out good , not great. From 10 feet away you couldn't tell it was there....but.... After 2000 miles it has started to pull away from the edges of the tear so it's not long lasting.

What is long lasting is another rip I repaired with black liquid electrical tape. It's not pretty, it shines glossy instead of flat. But it is there to stay. If I took my time and used a smaller brush it may have turned out better, but it is still glossy so it shows up at a distance. It is also not as flexible as the seat material, but it holds great.

That sounds like the same kit I used. I got it from a Murray's auto parts if I recall. You basically repair the rip with some clear silicone type stuff and let it dry. Then you apply some colored stuff over it. It came with several colors that you can mix to get the exact color. I just used black.

It had several different pads with different vinyl grain patterns. You pick the closest pattern and put it over the colored goop while it's still wet. Then you heat up a small metal disc and sorta iron over the pad to cure the goop and imprint a grain pattern into it.

One of my repairs came out very nice and you can hardly tell it's there other than it is a bit more dull/flat than the surrounding vinyl. The other one wasn't as good, the edges didn't blend as well.

whatever happened to sewing the rips.

what ive done in the past if its a small nick ,take the seat off and carefully undo the seat cover off the sharp spikes on the underside of the pan ,i then find the problem nick and i then put duct tape(gaffa tape) over it from the inside,then refit the cover .it works very well as ive found that some vinyl welds get brittle and cause a hard spot ,then its just a matter of time before it goes again:S

after reading this thread, I went to try something on my lunchbreak... I just took a piece of black electrical tape and slid it UNDER the seat cover thru the tear, lined it up, and pressed the tear shut. seems to hold up ok, and looks good from a few feet, no foam showing through anymore. the rip was about 1 inch.

None of those vinyl repairs will have the sunlight resistance of the original vinyl. Save your money, use some duct tape and replace the cover when you can afford one.

KZCSI

Post edited by: KZCSI, at: 2006/03/09 23:35