Anybody replaced seat cover on K1200s/1300s?

Below you can see that most of the glue (neoprene glue) is concentrated on the edges of the seat. That is why it makes sense to remove the external layer from the middle to the edges.


Below, you can see the underneath, once the outer shell and all the staples have been removed:



Top of the seat showing the foam. You can see the large slit that was created years ago and has started deteriorating the foam:



Now, I just have to install the Volcano cover on top of it.

Yves

Are you doing anything abut the indentations on the original foam the one on the sides in the front.
No, I am not doing anything about that. The VOLCANO cover does not have these ridges but looks really good. It is a major upgrade from the regular seat.



Looks like that foam is rotting and has done its job. As deep as you are into it I would replace it.
It looks worse than it is in reality. I do not feel like removing the entire foam and replacing it.....honestly.

I think I am going to ask a local upholstery shop to install the Volcano cover. They will most definitely do a better job than me and it would require multiple strong hands to pull on the fabric, while stapling it.

Yves

OK, I got the cover removed today. I found the cover is lightly glued to the foam over the entire seat with extra glue on the bottom edges near the staples. I cut the cover on top carefully with an X-acto knife. I found cutting with the blade flat (horizontal) and using a sawing motion would split the material and I could basically peel it apart without damaging the foam.

#1 thing I learned: I could not peel the cover away from the foam cleanly without heat. I first began pulling on the cover without heat and it ripped out small pieces of foam. Once I started using heat (hair dryer on full hot worked very well, I think a heat gun even on low would be too much) the cover peeled away from the foam cleanly. Had I started with the heat right away, the foam would have stayed nearly perfect. I ended up with a divot on the rear of the seat but not too deep. The front is nearly perfect.

I applied the heat and pulled lightly until the glue started to release and found that worked all the way around. Even the thin foam that wraps under the base held together as long as I heated the glue enough. I used scissors and the X-acto knife to cut sections that I peeled off from top to bottom until it was done.

A question I have is whether I'll need to fill in the area that the foam peeled away from. It's about 1/8" deep. I'm thinking if the new cover is pulled tight that gap won't show but I'm not sure.


[url=https://flic.kr/p/2otoDqU]

I finally installed the cover on the stripped seat. We had our first Saturday with some sunshine and I left the cover in the sun to warm it up. The cover is made by Volcano in Italy and shipped to the USA through a British agent. The net result is that you end up paying (in dollars) exactly twice the price in Euros (Italian price is 98 euros). The British seller on EBAY is taking a copious share and then there is shipping and taxes.

Anyway, the final product is really nice and make your seat look like Alcantara and carbon fibers fabric. Of course, it is neither.

The cover is surrounded by some kind of elastic band, that helps with the positioning and installation. I used the following pneumatic tool to drive the staples in the hard shell of the BMW seat:

That tool is connected to an air compressor. The staples are 5/16" or 3/8" T50 type.

The best way is to let the cover soak the heat of the sunshine and do the work in the sun.

I started by securing the front of the cover and the two middle sides that require significant pulling to get them right.








On the bike, it looks sharp and much better than the stock seat. The stitching is beautiful.








Sitting on it, it is very comfortable and provides a good amount of grip and friction.

Yves