T2W How To: KLR650 Budget Seat Upgrade for $4 

Those electric turkey trimmers or something similar would make quick work of the bigger parts of the foam. You can find those sometimes cheaply at yard sales or thrift stores. For next to nothing. And you can toss it afterwards.

Just bought a stock KLR....it so needed this upgrade! I did the upgrade as you laid out, with three remarks for future DIY KLR owners:1) I found closed cell neoprene foam to be too hard. Found a local upholsterer who was also a biker; he recommended high end 1" upholstery foam ($10....not $4!) as being softer and way higher quality than the stuff commercial seat makers use. It feels awesome now! I acknowledge it might not have the waterproof-ness of closed cell stuff.2) My 'Hobby Lobby' steel staple gun was not butch enough to push staples into the molded plastic...nor was an industrial air-driven one I borrowed from a buddy (maybe the staples were not industrial strength?). So, to re-fit the seat cover, with the seat inverted I painstakingly.....a) pulled the seat cover tight into position and folded it over (where T2W would have stapled it into place)b) held a (4"?) length of zip-tie where I was about to drillc) held the cover and zip tie there with adjustable wide-mouth hand grips d) Predrilled a tiny hole for a short screw through the zip tie and cover and into the molded plastice) screwed in a short self-tapping screw f) moved 2" down the zip tie length and screwed in another screw thru the ziptie, cover and into the molded

Very impressive workmanship. I just bought a 2006 KLR 650. Love it but seat is tough. And I’m seeing prices of 400 for a new seat. That’s not in my budget. I’m gonna jump into the rebuild. I’m pretty handy I’m a plumber. What looks the most difficult is the cutting of old foam. I’m thinking isolating tool. Your the man though. You jumped into something that you never did before and did it on camera. And created a base for us to go off of. Thank you for the video.

I have used a 40 grit flapper disc to shape the foam on my gold wing and my BMW r1200 to make those seats perfect shape the disc takes off just what you want!!

Ya wanna hear a funny one. I owned a 99 with a Sargent seat I put on 15 years ago. It still looked new last week. I was selling my bike as I was buying a newer model being 2016. Told the wife I was going to swap seats after buying it. Wife told me I should sell my bike first in case it takes a while. I said I would prefer not to. She said list it so I did. 26 Facebook replies. Sold it within 24 hours. Then wife says you got extra money for newer bike. I says yeah but I have to spend 500 for a new frigging seat meaning the good deal ain't so good. I loved the look she gave me. lol. I am going to look at widening and dishing it a bit. We have 2 electric knives. They are great for cutting insulation as well. I will probably then get it professionally covered at an upholstery shop.

Very nicely done video........I'd be totally comfortable trying this myself.

I use a 4inch angle grinder with a 80 grit sandpaper disc to cut away the foam,cuts through the foam really fast, I have rebuilt many seats including all 7 of my klr's, 2 250's and 5 650's

Dude,too cool. Thank you for your diligence and sharing.

I use a gel seat cover on top the seat and it works well.

That was a great cheap seat fix Tim I enjoyed it and gave me a few ideas on making a new seat thanks again !,

Thanks fir sharing Tim. Nice step by step process. And some good suggestions given to go along in some of the comments below. 👍🏽

I enjoyed that I've got to redo my factory vfr seat and get new foam as well so what you bought there might be what I need I want to reshape mine and make it more like a Corbin gunfighter seat

I made a new cover once with a yard of fake leather or chrome leather and I stapled in on stretching it out from one side to the other so there was no wrinkles and cut off the extra. It looked great and upped the resale value.

Wel done. Thanks

I used upholstry foam out a sofa I was tossing with some denser foam to make a wide seat for my baby ninja. It looked "different" for a ninja, but it was definitely more comfortable.

very nice! gave some ideas for my seat...

I used an Electric carving knife. Awesome results

I just bought mine n road 100 miles in a day i am coming from zx10r oh man its most comfortable seat so far no but pain

i would have put the foam seam at the back, where i dont reall seat , awesome video, doing didnt seem that hard. you'd just have to be sort of brave to start, if you couldn't afford a new seat. thx from a fellow KLR rider.

I like your videos. Thank you so much for your work Mr. 2wheels 🙂 I'm sad I can't see you do videos for all my bikes 🙁 I would have tried that purple seat stuff.