More expensive than I thought

CRASH · Feb 10, 2015

I've seen those too GD. But like you said, the matte look of the red really turns me off.

The flip side is this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/20-BANANA-S...8&pid=100005&rk=3&rkt=6&sd=281370996952&rt=nc

A sparkle seat with good color, but the mylar isn't textured and looks a little "dead" to me.

whopperchopper · Feb 10, 2015

That one looks good, I have some red metallic vinyl if you decide to try to cover a pan

MissJett · Feb 16, 2015

Hi Boys! I'm new here and a girl who is really into vintage Schwinn bikes. I buy them to ride, not to hang

Currently I am having a seat problem! I recently purchased a 68 Mini Twinn off Craigslist here in SoCal for $450. Everything I believe to be original except for the seats. Well, we all know the front seat is impossible to find so after a lot of research and not coming up with anything I found a inexpensive Persons mini banana, picked up some marine vinyl and spent a couple hours yesterday doing the recover. Now the rear banana wasn't a Schwinn seat so I though I would use a seat pan from one of my other stings (both of which needed to be recovered anyways) and recover it so the rear would match the front. Well when I started taking apart the 68's seat pans, guess what? Cornflakes! When I pulled back the foam you can see that the top pan is a rusty crumbled disaster, the bottom pan is in much better condition. So I took the seat off the 65 and the bottom looks okay but under the foam the along edges of the top pan it looks a little rough in a couple places. Now I don't know what to do... I have some rubber edge stripping I could put along the edge, clean it up and recover it like it is... Or try to find another seat in better condition to recover. But here is the dilemma, both of these seats looked like a lot of other vintage seats I have seen on eBay. How would I ever be able to tell that the seats listed weren't in the exact same condition once the cover came off??? And I don't want to spend a lot of money on nice one since I really just need a pan in decent condition. So then I looked at new banana seats thinking I could buy a cheap (pyramid) one and recover it, but from what I have been reading the pans don't come apart and they are plastic not metal... So I come humbled to all of you who have been doing this sort of thing better and longer than myself for some advise. What would you do?

rfeagleye · Feb 16, 2015

Hey MissJett! Cool project you have going on there!

Here is what I have come to know on seat recovering. I have a good friend that does many many recovers, and have learned a lot from him.

You are correct on the corn flake seats and the ones you see on eBay, you don't know what they are going to look like when you yank the cover off. One rule of thumb my friend has told me is if the cover is ripped and the foam is missing at all on the top, there might be a problem with the top pan. They seem to get rusty along that bottom edge if moisture gets under the cover and foam. If the cover is in tact they seem to be better.

Also, to fix those seats that have a rusty top pan, I have seen him spot weld in some metal along the bottom edge of the top pan, so there is a nice edge for him to use for the recover. He does this on pans that aren't too far gone, and they usually come out pretty well.

Finally, the best fix would be find an inexpensive Persons made pan and use that to recover. The seats on the 1968 Schwinn muscle bikes had a unique bottom pan, it has a raised platform of sorts where the seat post clamp is attached, and a bolt in the top pan to hold everything together. Those pans are difficult to find for a decent price and in nice shape. But there are many other Persons made banana seats out there that you might be able to snag cheap. The top of the seat will look the same, just the bottom pan would be different.

Good luck with your Mini Twinn!

MissJett · Feb 21, 2015

Got it Rollin! Ended up using a wire brush attachment to clean the rust of the 65 stingray seat and used it. Still a work in progress but it is Rollin!