I have the F model and am looking for some creative ideas to store my registration, misc stuff etc... under the seat. Any suggestions here? Anybody suggest a special kind of bag or box to keep things water tight and keep from falling through the gaps. I know there ain't a whole lota room there but there is some. I have the stock tool bag in place.
Thanks in advance!
I have an unimplemented scheme in mind that involves new fender and seat pan. One of these years.
Without that level of bother which leads to "unimplemented", see what sort of sandwich-sized food storage box (gladware, tupperware, etc) you can squeeze in there. Looking for the sweet spot of small enough to fit, big enough to hold something, and big enough not to go sliding right out the cracks.
For the registration, I'd suggest making a copy and putting that in a zip-lock (freezer bags are more durable) under the strapped-in toolbag.
Ziplock Freezer bag is how i go. Its big enough that folded it wont slip out of any cracks, and when you place the tool kit on top, its not going to slide any where! I say Ziplock!
i actually keep everything in the ziplock bag that the owners manual and paperwork came in with the bike. all that makes it big enough to not slide around with the stock tool kit in place.
you still have some room for "little things" from the store like greeting cards, reciepts, i've even squeezed my wind breaker liner from my coat in there, plus a reciept or two!
I have a hard plastic CD case that came with a multipack of CD-Rs. It fits nicely in the rear section under the seat. I just keep my insurance and registration info in it so I wrap the seam with electrical tape to make it waterproof.
-Jessie
i have one of my mom's old tupperware containers, lol. it fits right into the back of the storage area and doesnt bounce around or anything. works out nicely.
I taped my stuff to the bottom of the seat. That way when I get pulled over I just hand em my whole seat. Lol
I keep that stuff in my wallet., dont have to worry about it getting wet or falling out of there
.
In a related thread: http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=44778.msg529513#msg529513
Quote from: dauphinc on February 06, 2010, 12:52:05 PM
I taped my stuff to the bottom of the seat. That way when I get pulled over I just hand em my whole seat. Lol
HAHA! thats amazing. Id love to see a cop take a whole seat into his car to punch in the info. amazing idea
That's the whole reason I did it Kylegod. Hahaha
but back to the subject. I just always ride with my bags on. very light. holds tons of crap. then unzip a zipper to expand the bag and waalaa, even more crap can fit. and easy to take on and off. no locks though. but as for under my seat...tools and a duct tapped zip lock bag with my insurance and registration.
I just keep mine in the pistol case under my seat. Cops get a little mouthy when you pull out a pistol with your insurance, but its kinda funny and my case is waterproof like the gun inside is worth more than the bike! (Cause it is...)
If you wanted to get creative and have some real storage you could cut a chunk out of the upper most part of your undertail, and fiberglass a little box under there, and paint it black. The wheel well under there is pretty huge, and I don't really think you'd be able to see it from the outside. If you don't go huge there's no real risk of your wheel hitting it.
I have a small tuperware box under there with:
a spare headlight globe
spare fuses
a bandage
band-aids
$20 note
I was just discussing this on another forum and came up with a pretty interesting idea, but it'll only work if you don't like riding passengers. If there isn't a lot of storage under a seat, I was thinking you could uncover the rear of the seat, make a straight cut of the foam where you're not going to be sitting, and then trim/restaple the vinyl down so the main seat is still fully intact. Then you could make yourself a little fiberglass shaped piece, or metal if that's your thing, that's the same exact shape as the piece of foam you just cut out. You could find some more vinyl, glue it to the new piece, and attach it back on to the seat pan with a hinge and some kind of latch that would hold it down. It would be plenty of room for a wallet, cell phone, and a sandwich and would for the most part look like a stock bike. You'd have to come up with a good way to make it look nice around the edges. I'm thinking maybe instead of the hinge, you might do better to have a lip that comes all the way down and wraps under the seat pan like the vinyl does, and you could just slide it straight on the back of the seat like some seat cowls do.
I'm pretty over having passengers on my bike, so if the next bike I get has one long seat and no real storage, I think I'm gonna buy a spare seat and see what I can come up with.
Tankbag is my main form of storage. My registration and insurance are in one of those wallets you get at Wal-Mart and then put in a Ziploc bag and then double side taped down.
My toolkit is also under there along with a cargo net.
Mary
Quote from: tt_four on February 12, 2010, 10:30:09 PM
I was just discussing this on another forum and came up with a pretty interesting idea, but it'll only work if you don't like riding passengers. If there isn't a lot of storage under a seat, I was thinking you could uncover the rear of the seat, make a straight cut of the foam where you're not going to be sitting, and then trim/restaple the vinyl down so the main seat is still fully intact. Then you could make yourself a little fiberglass shaped piece, or metal if that's your thing, that's the same exact shape as the piece of foam you just cut out.
Nahhh. If you're over having passengers, (or simply know which trips you might have them on and have two seats) you are not limited to the space where the foam was (not much on the passenger end, at that). You can crank it up into one of the solo tail styes (whatever appeals to you) but with storage rather than empty space (the racers not being interested in carrying stuff with them don't bother to think about storage when they do these things.) And there (or with your method) you have a complicated thing that's so much bother that it's - unimplemented. I do have a seat latch and a general plan, but can't see much chance that it will go anywhere before possibly next winter. Got power, got no heat, still got quite a bit of finishing the building to get done before projects other than itself get much time.
Yeah, I've got that solo tail on my GS, and I'd love to eventually be able to access the giant empty space inside the tail, but right now it's a solo tail and everything is bolted together, so there's no easy way to get in to it. Once I learn to fiberglass I will be more likely to cut up the tail and see what I can come up with.
The first option was just if you wanted to stick to a pretty stock looking appearance. I was talking about it over on the buell board before, and I don't like those bikes with anything buy the stock tail, and even the solo seat cowls I see people using I can't get used to, so if it was a situation like that having storage inside the stock seat would definitely be my preferred option. I think I'd definitely just go to 2 seat method so I could pick which seat I wanted, but I got the GS as a 2nd bike because I didn't like my wife being on the back, plus I know she'd rather be on her own, plus I'm married so I have no reason to keep it such as "what if I see a cute stranded girl at the bar who could use a ride home?!"
Quote from: galahs on February 12, 2010, 06:54:11 PM
I have a small tuperware box under there with:
a spare headlight globe
spare fuses
a bandage
band-aids
$20 note
spark plug
also under my seat I have:
- a cargo net
- 3 large garbage bags folded up (comes in handy if it rains, or if you need to put your helmet in a bag)
- disk lock
- tool kit that I added a pocket knife, alan (hex) key for the fairings and zip ties