Motorcycle MacGyvering pt. 2: Driver Backrest

For the second installment of the Motorcycle Mcgyvering series, I want to talk about the driver's backrest I built for my Majesty. Unfortunately, this one won't really translate to other models of bike since the seat design's won't be the same, but hopefully it'll at least give you an idea of what's possible with harvested parts and a little experimentation. 

My original backrest design used the Majesty's "butt pad", raised up on a metal bracket, to serve as a back rest. It worked alright, and looked good, but it lacked lower back support, and left two holes in the seat that were difficult to cover up. 

I settled for this set-up for a while, for lack of any better ideas. However, we had replaced the driver's seat in my family's RV, and the headrest from the original seat seemed like an ideal candidate for a new and improved backrest. If you don't have an extra headrest laying around, you could probably find one at an auto salvage yard. I'd imagine many of them would probably just let you have one for free, especially if the upholstery on it is in bad shape. As long the foam on the inside is ok, it will work fine for these purposes.

I reused the bracket from the first backrest. It basically consists of some flat steel from Home Depot, welded together in the shape of an uppercase "I". I asked a local welding shop to do the welds for me. It took them all of 30 seconds to do them, and they didn't even charge me. I bent the vertical portion of the "I" to match the curve of the seat as closely as I could, and drilled holes in the bottom of the "I" to match the holes in the seat. I then drilled holes in the back of the head rest to push a couple carriage bolts through, and fastened the headrest to the top of the bracket. 

I used a scroll saw to cut a notch out in the back of the butt pad, to allow room for the bracket. In retrospect, I should have been more careful to remove the vinyl material covering the butt pad before cutting it, then  reattached it, instead of trying to pull it out of the way and rewrapping it around the notch. Some electrical tape is currently doing a decent job of covering the edge and holding the cover in place. At some point down the road, I'd like to have both the headrest portion and the butt pad recovered by someone who knows what they're doing. 

The headrest originally had a blue fabric covering it. I removed the fabric, and spray painted the foam as a temporary solution until I can get it recovered.

I held the new backrest in place and sandwiched it between the seat and the butt pad, using the bolts built into the butt pad to hold everything in place. (The yellow line across the seat in this picture is evidence of how insane the tree pollen has been this spring) 

The new backrest is much more comfortable than the first version, providing both upper and lower back support, and placing me in the proper place on the seat. With the butt pad raised up, I felt like I was sitting too far back, as the padding in the seat gets a little thin towards the very back of the seat. Now the seat works as it was originally designed, plus the addition of the backrest. I think that the result looks professional enough, and it will look even better when I get around to getting everything recovered.