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|  | Topic : Secure your Mustang backrest from sticky fingers |  |
| | | PapaSmurfMC | | Chaac |  |  | | Reg. Date | : | 03/10/2013 | | Posts | : | 871 | | Location | : | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States |
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| | Posted : 23 Mar 2014 - 05:03 Post title : Secure your Mustang backrest from sticky fingers | | | Ever since I got my Mustand Vintage solo seat with backrest, I've been noodling on how to keep the backrest from walking away. Even before I saw all the posts about how Mustang made no provision to secure the backrest from sticky fingers and won't sell a replacement backrest, I knew this was going to be a challenge. There are some who are OK with removing the backrest and taking it along or locking it in a saddle bag but having to dismantle bits of my bike whenever I park it sucks some the joy out of riding for me.
I don't always ride with the backrest so my goal was to secure the backrest to the bike in a way that both discourages theft yet allows me to easily remove it and to leave it behind when I want to without a lot of fuss.
First, there's no way to prevent someone with tools from walking away with pretty much any part of your bike but you can make it more difficult and that makes it a less tempting target for impulse theft, the unskilled and the malicious.
I won't go through the laundry list of ideas I considered but I did end up with a pretty good collection of hardware that fortunately never saw the light of day. As practically always, it was the simplest idea that worked the best.
So here's what I ended up with: a 14 inch loop of vinyl covered eighth-inch steel cable bolted to the lower hinge of the backrest at one end and looped through and locked to my rear solo rack. It's conspicuous enough to make it obvious that the thing is attached but inconspicuous enough to not draw attention to itself, it's non-scratching, lockable (and so unlockable), strong, cheap to put together with basic tools and easy to get the parts wherever you may be.
Here's the finished product:
The basic construction of the cable can be done with just 3 parts: one 8 gauge battery cable terminal (tinned), a length of eighth-inch steel cable and a length of clear vinyl aquarium tubing. Incidentals you may already have on hand include a nylon flat washer, blue threadlock, an inch or so of half-inch heat-shrink tubing, household epoxy and a couple of zip ties. Tools needed are: a bench vise, hammer, punch and cable cutter (or a hack saw will probably do, for cutting cable to length).
The steel cable is available at most home centers, sold by the foot. Eighth-inch steel cable goes for less than $1 a foot. Since I decided that I just needed to reach from the backrest post to my solo rack, 3 feet was plenty. I ended up using 28 inches.
You can get the vinyl tubing anywhere pet supplies are sold. You need about 2 inches less tubing than you do steel cable.
The 8 gauge battery cable terminal may be a little harder to find in small quantities. Most electrical supply stores have them; I got mine on ebay, a 5-pack for $6. I had some experimenting to do so I figured I'd go through a few (and did). These are usually made of copper but you can get a "tinned" version that looks a lot better next to chrome. It's important that you get 8 gauge so the eighth-inch steel cable fits inside. Both ends of the steel cable get crimped inside this terminal.
Figure out the distance from where you're going to secure the cable looped end to the bike and the the right side (hex bolt side) of the backrest. Buy at least twice as much than this number since we're making a loop of the cable. Once your cable is cut to length, clean both ends with alcohol.
Cut the vinyl tubing about 2 inches shorter than the steel cable then thread the cable through the tubing, leaving equal lengths of cable exposed at each end. Bring the two ends side by side and slip the shrink tubing (optional) over the two ends. Mix up a few drops of epoxy and half-fill the crimp end of the battery cable terminal; with whatever is left, coat the two steel cable ends and insert them into the terminal crimp end as far as they will go.
Carefully insert the crimp end of the terminal in a vise and crimp down flat so the cable ends are permanently wedged inside the terminal. For extra insurance, I dimpled each side if the crimp with a punch and hammer.
Slip the heat shrink over the crimp half of the terminal and shrink with lowest heat that works. The epoxy will harden in minutes so clean up any drips or smudges before it does.
To reduce the strain on the cables entering the crimp, I zip-tied the cables together in a few places near the terminal end of the cable.
The cable assembly is all done; now just needs to be attached to the backrest.
Remove the nut from the lower-most hinge of the backrest and pull out the hex bolt. Slip the terminal onto the bolt then add a nylon washer just to prevent any scratching of the chrome on the backrest post(optional). Reassemble the backrest hinge, angling the terminal up (from horizontal, pointing out the rear of the backrest) so it doesn't press into the seat when the backrest is pushed all the way down. Put a dab of blue thread lock on the bolt threads and retighten so the hinge still moves but also holds the position it was left in.
Install the backrest in the seat and loop the cable end around whatever you're securing it to and lock the cable to itself; I used a small padlock.
If you don't care about leaving the backrest behind every now and then, you could always slip the loop end of the cable around a nearby bolted connection and make it semi-permanent, eliminating the need for a lock.
Like I said at the top, this isn't going to stop someone equipped with the right tools but then, what will? It's enough to make me feel better about leaving the backrest behind when parked. If it works for anyone else, so much the better.
Ride safe,
PapaSmurfMC
| 2013 Blue Marble Haze Thunderbird 1600 ABS
2009 Black Bonneville A1 ("Mag")
Buncha farkles
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| | | Dags | | Set | |  | | Reg. Date | : | 01/11/2013 | | Posts | : | 468 | | Location | : | N.S.W, Australia |
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| | Posted : 23 Mar 2014 - 06:44 Post title : Re: Secure your Mustang backrest from sticky fingers (Re: PapaSmurfMC) | | | Nice write up as usual mate.
Am I'm right in guessing the weather is pretty crap in your neck of the woods, as you seem to be smashing those jobs in the "To Do list"
|  Dags
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| | | PapaSmurfMC | | Chaac | | | | Reg. Date | : | 03/10/2013 | | Posts | : | 871 | | Location | : | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States |
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| | Posted : 24 Mar 2014 - 03:15 Post title : Re: Secure your Mustang backrest from sticky fingers (Re: Dags) | | |
Dags wrote:
Nice write up as usual mate.
Am I'm right in guessing the weather is pretty crap in your neck of the woods, as you seem to be smashing those jobs in the "To Do list"
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Spot on Dags, and they're predicting snow for Tuesday! 
What happened to Spring? 
| 2013 Blue Marble Haze Thunderbird 1600 ABS
2009 Black Bonneville A1 ("Mag")
Buncha farkles
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| | | edbob | | Chaac | |  | | Reg. Date | : | 04/04/2012 | | Posts | : | 931 | | Location | : | United States |
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| | Posted : 27 Mar 2014 - 18:13 Post title : Re: Secure your Mustang backrest from sticky fingers (Re: PapaSmurfMC) | | | Very nice and creative. Thanks for the photos and write-up
| "You will ride eternal shiny and chrome"
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| | | Daycruiser | | Chaac | | | Reg. Date | : | 08/11/2011 | | Posts | : | 704 | | Location | : | Garner, NC, United States |
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| | Posted : 28 Mar 2014 - 09:25 Post title : Re: Secure your Mustang backrest from sticky fingers (Re: edbob) | | | This is a good idea and may help keep the backrest on one's bike. The real problem is not the sticky fingered backrest bandits it's the mind set of the Mustang Seat company. They can and do make just the backrests and could very easily secure the back rest with a design change. They have made the conscious decision to not sell just the back rest without a new seat to go with it and they've made the conscious decision to not change the design. They're actually counting on somebody lifting a backrest so they can sell more seats and backrests. That's the kind of marketing decision that shouldn't be rewarded by buying their product.
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| | | PapaSmurfMC | | Chaac | | | | Reg. Date | : | 03/10/2013 | | Posts | : | 871 | | Location | : | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States |
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| | Posted : 29 Mar 2014 - 02:30 Post title : Re: Secure your Mustang backrest from sticky fingers (Re: Daycruiser) | | | Fortunately, I've never needed to reach out to Mustang support. I have read a couple of posts [elsewhere] of unsatisfactory Mustang support but doubt they're making a conscious decision to screw customers over. More likely the backrest is an old design and now isn't lockable due to economic pressures if the sales volume didn't justify the redesign. Engineering and retooling are really expensive.
And maybe they have a douchebag in the support chain. They're everywhere. Sometimes it's just bad chemistry between customer and vendor. Consistently bad vendors tend to not last very long but Mustang's been around since 1980. All I know for sure is that this is my second Mustang seat (different bikes) and after spending 500 miles on the stock seat, there's just no comparison.
I usually buy direct but in the case of my Mustang seat, I made it a point to buy from my bike dealer since they'll go to bat for me and deal with the vendor if needed. Don't know if authorized vendors have better luck dealing with them but it would be interesting to hear from anyone with that experience.
| 2013 Blue Marble Haze Thunderbird 1600 ABS
2009 Black Bonneville A1 ("Mag")
Buncha farkles
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| | | Daycruiser | | Chaac | | | Reg. Date | : | 08/11/2011 | | Posts | : | 704 | | Location | : | Garner, NC, United States |
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| | Posted : 29 Mar 2014 - 12:28 Post title : Re: Secure your Mustang backrest from sticky fingers (Re: PapaSmurfMC) | | |
PapaSmurfMC wrote:
Fortunately, I've never needed to reach out to Mustang support. I have read a couple of posts [elsewhere] of unsatisfactory Mustang support but doubt they're making a conscious decision to screw customers over. More likely the backrest is an old design and now isn't lockable due to economic pressures if the sales volume didn't justify the redesign. Engineering and retooling are really expensive.
And maybe they have a douchebag in the support chain. They're everywhere. Sometimes it's just bad chemistry between customer and vendor. Consistently bad vendors tend to not last very long but Mustang's been around since 1980. All I know for sure is that this is my second Mustang seat (different bikes) and after spending 500 miles on the stock seat, there's just no comparison.
I usually buy direct but in the case of my Mustang seat, I made it a point to buy from my bike dealer since they'll go to bat for me and deal with the vendor if needed. Don't know if authorized vendors have better luck dealing with them but it would be interesting to hear from anyone with that experience.
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Papa I think you're the eternal optimist and find the silver lining in everything. Sadly I'm not, I'm as cynical as they get. If you read this very carefully Link One has to consider they have the financial and mechanical ability to resolve the theft potential of this type backrest. And since they listen to thousands of riders they clearly should know about the problem. I've seen it reported at least twice on the other site and Mustang told them to go pound sand when they tried to purchase just the backrest. I've had this Mustang seat and backrest on a previous ride, fortunately mine wasn't stolen. I know first hand how easy it is to remove that backrest. They could fix the problem if they wanted to.
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| | | feduke | | Thor | |  | | Reg. Date | : | 11/08/2009 | | Posts | : | 2,441 | | Location | : | Daytona Beach, Florida, United States |
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| | Posted : 29 Mar 2014 - 18:07 Post title : Re: Secure your Mustang backrest from sticky fingers (Re: PapaSmurfMC) | | | Yes, you'd better secure it. Mine did "walk away" and I found out that Mustang will not sell you a replacement. They advised me to buy an entire new seat for around $600 then. When I got in touch with a vice president he told me "we don't sell fucking parts, we sell seats" and hung up on me. I wouldn't deal with that company if I had to ride on a bicycle seat instead. Fuck em. Their are far better seats out there for a lot less money.
| I'm a secondhand vegetarian. Cows eat grass. I eat cows.
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| | | Terota66 | | Chaac | |  | | Reg. Date | : | 24/11/2013 | | Posts | : | 505 | | Location | : | Nova Scotia, Canada |
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| | Posted : 29 Mar 2014 - 18:28 Post title : Re: Secure your Mustang backrest from sticky fingers (Re: feduke) | | | Damnnnnn ......I just bought a Mustang seat with pillion and backrest
| 2013 Thunderbird Storm ABS
HardStreets
LED Headlights
Short Tors & tune
K&N air filter
Mustang Vintage 2 Up Seat
Scorpion Alarm
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| | | PapaSmurfMC | | Chaac | | | | Reg. Date | : | 03/10/2013 | | Posts | : | 871 | | Location | : | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States |
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| | Posted : 30 Mar 2014 - 03:54 Post title : Re: Secure your Mustang backrest from sticky fingers (Re: feduke) | | | Hey, look what I opened up!
OK, Mustang management are dicks. They still make a great saddle so I'm not going to throw mine out but if I do ever have a problem that I need support for, I'm not going to settle for getting hung up on by a VP, I'm getting hung up on by the President! 
| 2013 Blue Marble Haze Thunderbird 1600 ABS
2009 Black Bonneville A1 ("Mag")
Buncha farkles
| | Post edited by PapaSmurfMC on 30 Mar 2014 - 04:20 |
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