DIY Pillion Seat Backrest

[GPJake]

I ride with 2 passengers fairly often on the Ural. One problem has been passenger fatigue after sitting behind me for a while due to not having a backrest.

Raceway Ural used to sell a passenger backrest ($200), that requires their rear luggage rack ($235). I blow a lot of money on motorcycle things, but $435 for a backrest before tax & shipping felt a bit absurd. So - I set out to make my own.

The scrap yards around me had steel, but usually either too thick or random holes & cuts in the wrong places. So - I bought a set of two, 10" x 24" x 1/8" thick steel plates off eBay for $60.xx shipped.

The steel plates as received:

I started by mocking up shapes with cardboard (always keep spare cuts of cardboard on hand for this). Didn't take any pictures of this. After I was happy with the shape / size / etc, I traced the shape onto one of the steel plates twice & cut it out. I held the backrest side-rails to mark where i needed holes for attaching. I thought to add cascading holes incase I wanted/needed to adjust the height of the backrest (but I never did).


Held up to the bike to make sure all was good. As you can see, I'm using the existing double-bolts that go on the passenger bars for this. I did buy longer bolts from Ace Hardware to accommodate.

Here's a picture of the backrest itself. I got this for $15 at a flea market. It had more metal & different bits to it that I cut off, leaving what you see here (the black piece).

I then mocked up a rear support for the back to be it plenty of strength (again with cardboard). Once happy, I traced + cut from the 1/8" steel plate. After cutting, I bent an angle into the top using my vice + 1 hand sledge. On the other end, I heated it with a propane torch and hammered it around a steel pipe I had laying around. This bent part will wrap around the taillight guard (as you'll see in later pics).

Then I sanded everything & made a DIY paint booth with sawhorses and masking paper.

Here's the first test-fit on the bike. I used some thin rubber material I had to wrap the taillight guard to avoid scratching it.

 

 

[GPJake]

Then came time for the pad + pad backing + wrap. The pad was a $15 Husky outdoor "kneeling mat" from Home Depot. This one is thicker and MUCH softer than a cheaper Harbor Freight option I also checked. I put the metal backrest "face down" on a piece of 1/2" plywood and traced it, adding another inch or 2 to the lower portion for added size.

Then, I traced the plywood shape onto the kneeling mat and cut that out.

This is my first ever upholstery work. It was painful, slow, and took me 2 tries to get something I was happy with. I completed it once, then tore it off and started all over again learning from my mistakes. The fabric is black faux leather vinyl from Michael's.

I didn't take pictures of the back of this, but imagine a LOT of staples. Tip for those as bad as me at this: Use extra fabric so you can stretch it up & hide your staples/folds behind the plate your mounting it to (ie the metal backrest plate).

Here's a front + back shot of everything mounted up. For now, I drilled a small hole into the bottom of the steel support beam and put some steel wire through it to avoid it popping off the taillight protector metal.

 

[GPJake]

The most frustrating part for me & my tool set at this point was cutting metal. Even 1/8" plate is frustrating.

I've added a few tools since, but for this version used a sawzall + metal blade for the longer/straighter cuts, then a jigsaw + metal blade for the smaller/finer cuts. After the cuts, bench grinder + belt/disc sander for cleaning.

Also - cutting & grinding/sanding metal into shape gets really messy... Metal bits & dust everywhere. Especially frustrating when I'm too lazy to cover my other motorcycles. This $15 magnet roller from Harbor Freight works great, helps a ton with the cleanup, and is small & easy to get out of the way when not in use.

[GPJake]

Here's version 2 & upgrade of the DIY pillion backrest.

I wanted to re-do the backrest using tubing, so went to the outlet of a steel supplier in the area and bought a ~10ft or so section of 3/4" steel tube (don't remember the wall thickness). Around the same time I was looking into simple DIY tube bending options.

Here's a shot of the tube stock for reference.

 

I didn't really take pictures of me grunting and throwing myself into the pipe bender. But here's a stand-up shot of the main frame of the backrest after the first few bends. Ignore the pipe laying on top... Just did that for weight for the picture so it'd stand up without tipping back.

I was pretty happy with it at this point. It was too wide at the opening - but I expected that - and planned to do minor bending by hand to adjust it later on.
 

Pro tip (a.k.a. amateur tip that is obvious to pro's): Mark the middle point + regular increments on whatever stock you're bending. This makes it drastically easier to get equal bends at equal places. Example: I should've marked the middle of this pipe, then every inch through the ends. That would've given me known equal distance to begin the other bends from.

Because I didn't do that marking above, one of the horizontal sections ended up ~1/2" lower than the other. I had to straighten & re-bend that side to get the equal. Having those incremental marks would've given me known equal places to start from, avoiding that.

After the bends were finished, I took the pipe ends to the hydraulic press to mash down the ends to flatten raids that the mounting holes would be drilled into later.

[GPJake]

Next up was using some thin steel sheet to attach the padded backrest to. I just laid the top of the pipe down & traced with a tungsten carbide metal scribing pen:

I cut the plate out with a jigsaw + metal blade. Quick, easy, accurate & clean.

I then did some test welds at different speeds/power to make sure I didn't burn through the thin plate.

[GPJake]

I traced & cut at a point that would let me mount the plate to the back of the pipe, inset juuuust a bit, so the support + pad added later would sit "inside" the pipe surrounding it vs on top of it.

This is the "back" of the backrest. Lined up & clamped down on the welding table with some welding clamps & magnets. I used the clamps bolted to the table on the left & right to "squeeze in" the sides a bit.

Grinded the plate clean (cause of course I forgot to before lining it up in the previous picture). Then re-attached everything and added a few tack welds.

Finished the weld all the way around:

And some quick cleaning with a flap disc:

[GPJake]

Next up, I wanted to add some angle support bits. I'm not sure they're needed, but I had the pipe and wanted some practice notching. I mounted the Harbor Freight tube notcher into the bench vise.

Being my first time doing this, I spent a fair amount of time holding the pipe against the backrest frame & measuring, re-measuring, and re-measuring angles to be sure. After a while, I ended up with 2 copies of angled support beams:

And this is where they'll go:

[GPJake]

Now to weld them on.

As luck would have it, I ran out of welding wire with about 1 inch of welding left and had to run to the store for more...

[GPJake]

A couple shots of the "frame" mostly finished. I ended up putting a couple bends into the flat spots to angle the mounting plate "in" to the bolts (shown later).

 

[GPJake]

I used the cut-out from before to trace the backrest shape on some plywood. Then took it in an ~inch or so on all sides so it would fit inside the pipe & not overhang the metal plate. I also drilled some centered mounting holes, that I later copied on to the plywood.

I wanted the pad to extend to be flush with the pipe edges, so traced again using the pipe itself:

Lined up & drilled hopes in the plywood. Added the bolts, and pre-tightened nuts on the with a washer on the nut side to pull the hex head of the bolts into the wood. That way the bolt heads are inset to the wood and won't spin when I go to tighten them later.

Put the bolts in, put spray adhesive onto the plywood, lined it up & stuck it on:

 

Test fit onto the backrest:

[GPJake]

Now on to the part I'm especially terrible at.... Upholstery. I've tried it a few times. I watched YouTube videos. I just ain't good at it.

Here's the after shots. Bunch of staples in the back to make sure it doesn't pull loose over time:

Here's one of the top corners, they both look the same. Made sure the creases fold "down" so water doesn't run into / behind them:

And the bottom:

And the front. Hey, looks good from here.

[GPJake]

After sanding & wiping down with brake cleaner, hung it up for some painting. You can see here where I bent the flat mounting points "inward" so they sort of go around the existing pipes on the bike, then "into" the mounting point.

2 coats of primer, 3 coats of Satin Black, 3 coats of Satin Clear Enamel (all rattle can). Here it is after the last coat of clear (looks much glossier than it really is due to still being wet):

[GPJake]

And here it is mounted after drying for a few days, using existing holes/bolts.
I did buy new bolts & nuts a few mils longer than what were already there to accommodate the added distance needed for the metal from the backrest.

 

I used rubber washers when mounting the pad, shown here, to avoid gouging the paint too much with the nuts.

 

Overall, this is much stronger & more stable than the prior version (which I expected from the start). But, this did / does require a few additional tools. No regrets from the first version, as it was a good learning experience.

Very happy with the result. The black satin paint + clear satin enamel, when dry, match stock bits perfectly. Already used it a few times & the passengers like it.