1981 Midnight Special Seat Needed

[Michael March]

Anyone recommend an aftermarket manufacturer for a comfortable, stock looking, not too expensive seat for my '81 Special?

I recovered the aftermarket one on the bike I bought and it looks like a marshmallow. REALLY bad. Can't' find an original one on ebay or here so I'm going to risk buying an aftermarket. If you've done that and like it, let me know!

Mike

[John]

A "Yuper", huh? The seat from an 81 Special should be the same as your LH's seat. There is a King/Queen Style seat on ebay right now.

[Michael March]

Yup, I'm a Yooper alright. Lucky to get 6 months of riding, and need chaps for three of those! Okay, now you're gwine ta have ta 'splain this one to me. You wrote:

The seat from an 81 Special should be the same as your LH's seat. There is a King/Queen Style seat on ebay right now

Mine is an '81 special. Did you mean the '81 650 special will fit mine? Please advise, I want this done the moment the temp hits 40!

[John]

Seat Confusion

You said that your bike was an 81 Midnight Special. That is the LH model. Now if it is an 81 Special, that is an SH. The 80 Special is an SG. I ride an 80 SG. A seat from a 79 Special or Midnight Special will not fit because of the location of the tail light. (Don't ask me how I know).Confused yet? Good. Anyway the seat from any regular 80-81 Special will fit the 80-81 Midnight Special. I wasn't refering to the XS650, or the XS750-850. Those seats mount differently.

[TopCatGr58]

Hey there Michael,

The only aftermarket seat I've found is the Travelcade style dual bucket touring seat shown in J.C. Whitney, the bucket tends to push you close to the tank, the bucket is a fiberglass one, and you have to transfer the mounting hardware to the seat bucket. And it sells for close to $200.00.

If "YOU" recovered the OEM seat yourself, you might want to look into an upholstery shop to redo it professionally!? Good Luck!
T.C.

[Michael March]

Thanks for clearing that up for me John, I'll look for an 80-81 seat from any special too. TC, the seat I recovered was not an OEM seat, but some aftermarket job. It has a lot of plastic in it and all the sharp tabs that hold the seat covering in place are falling apart anyway, so I don't think I can salvage it. Now at least I know how to expand my search a bit, to include any 80 or 81 special...

[Michael March]

BTW John, I can't find that seat you mentioned on ebay even if I expand my search to "motorcycle seat, yamaha" Is it gone already?

[John]

I just looked in asian motorcycle/used parts, and then entered yamaha XS 1100 and started checking out what was there.

[thumperjsa]

Here is a seat recently posted on EBay. $45 BIN.
Seat

Guy has a lot of special parts for BIN.
Special parts on EBay

[Michael March]

That looks good. Will a '79 xs1100 special seat fit the '81 midnight special? I can fix the cover-

[John]

The 79 seat will fit, but only if you remove the hand rail/tail light. They tuck up into a opening in the back of the seat for an 80-81, but the 79 seat doesn't have tat opening in the back. On my 80 Special, I have a 79 seat, and I had to change the tail light to that of the 79 model.

[Michael March]

So if I get the '79 seat I also have to find a '79 tail light? Then it will work?

[John]

Yes, it will work. It will make your 81 look like a 79, so if that doesn't bother you...Like I said, that is the combination that I am using. The tail light can be sourced from a 78-79xs650 Special, 79 xs750 Special, or the 79 xs11 special. My tail light came from the 650. My headlight bucket is from an 80 850 Special. A lot of stuff will interchange from these models. Just look at the bike in the pic that is posted in thumpers post. Tha is how it will look.
Here is a link to pics of mine, if you'd like to take a peek.

http://community.webshots.com/user/john80sg

[John]

Mike, I din't mean to mislead you on the seat in ebay. I tried to find it today, and I couldn't, so I quess it's time was up?

[ratbyk]

XS Seat

John, here is the link to the seat. It is gone but this will let you know the final price and the buyer.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=4521862190&category=35589

Ken/Sooke