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HD Police style airbag on Knucks, Pans, or Chiefs

2K views 14 replies 8 participants last post by  chiefbuilder 
#1 ·
Have any of you messed with the late model HD airbag setup or something similar? I've heard from a few guys that it's the most comfortable setup they've ever ridden. I'm all for comfort. It should be easy enough to put on an old rigid or other rough riding bike. Just curious.
 
#2 ·
police solo seat is not big on looks but they built it for 8 hours a day every day to be on the machine, often thought of it but you need to look one up on flea bay and see the actual size of the works - but if your spending a few months on the bike around the country
 
#3 ·
I think if you look up seat pans, there is someone on hear that used the pan on his Scout but he stripped the foam off of the pan and recovered it. My thought about using it on an older bike in it's complete form would be the task of hiding all of the crap that goes with it (compressor, air tank and etc).

Mutt
 
#4 ·
I think if you look up seat pans, there is someone on hear that used the pan on his Scout but he stripped the foam off of the pan and recovered it. My thought about using it on an older bike in it's complete form would be the task of hiding all of the crap that goes with it (compressor, air tank and etc).

Mutt
These guys claim to have a workaround...

http://www.retiredpolicebikes.com/uploads/gorillaman/docs/TheKong.pdf

Mustang has a couple saddles available, too - I don't know if they'd be any more comfortable.

-Bill
 
#6 ·
Great insights. I've stripped a couple of late HD pans and recovered them with carpet padding and a piece of an old jacket- ran them on my Chiefs. Very comfortable but the pogo/ spring setup had to be perfect. I like the idea of infinite adjustment and zero drag or binding.
 

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#10 ·
But wait! There's more.

The top (non air line end) of the bladder uses flathead screws, so it's flush. The top mount would be simple, a flat bracket with holes at each for the spring mounts on your seat pan, and the mount pattern for the air bladder in the middle. I'm using and old Bates seat pan. so a mount like that wouldn't sit exactly flush on the seat pan, due to the pan's center brace. It could either be spaced at the spring mounts of a little creative bending would be in order.

The bladder itself is about 4 1/4" tall unloaded, and about 3 3/4" with 80 psi of air in it. Combined with the thickness of the mounts and spacers, that makes for a pretty tall seat spring. The plan was to make the bottom mount like a small cup, with straight sides. Put the inflated bladder in a vise and crank it down, it never gets more than 2 7/8" in diameter, so if the "cup" had an i.d. of 3" or so, you're good. This cup gets spliced into the center of the cross brace, so how deep you want it depends on a lot of things, how low you want the seat, clearance for fender and oil tank, stuff like that. The bladder, with all the air out of it, will compress to 1 3/4" but your effective minimum with air in it is probably closer to 2 1/2" The flat bottom of the cup will need the mount holes for the bladder, a hole for the air line hookup, and don't forget a drain hole at the lowest point so it doesn't collect rain or wash water.

You'd probably want to define the lowest point for your seat's travel with rubber bumper or two, in case of a leak or blowout.

What about a seat hinge with only a single bladder? here's an email exchange I had with Fab Kevin a while back:

Kevin,
Will one of your seat hinges work with a single spring or HD police air bag centered in the rear of the seat, without too much side to side rocking?
Thanks, Chuck

Chuck,
My hinge is the tightest and strongest hinge available, so if it won't do the trick, you will need to engineer something from scratch.
For sure, if you use an airbag, it will work. If you weigh over 250 pounds, and use a single, wobbly spring, then I can't guarantee anything. I have never had a single failure using my hinges, so you take that for what it is worth.
Feel free to call me, if you want to go over your ideas.
Respectfully, Kevin

One more thing. Filling it with air. If you've got a compressor with a good regulator on the air line and an accurate gauge, that'll work. I use a hand pump, the one HD sells for air shocks. Also, you're probably gonna go a little more on the air pressure than you would on a police bike. On the police bike the point at which the rider's weight is centered is about 2/3 or 3/4 of the distance between the hinge point and the air bladder, which means the air bladder only carries 2/3 to 3/4 of the rider's weight. On a chopper with a solo seat, that distance is probably closer to 90%, so you'd have to adjust accordingly.
 
#11 ·
Great info MOther. I hadn't anticipateed the side-to-side wobble- the hinge definitely needs to be tight. I tried a mock-up with a sloppy narrow tee and got 3" side-to-side. A tighter yoke really helped. I'm thinking I can hide most of the spring with a skirt around the back........
 
#12 ·
Old Panhead Red at Alley Cats Cycle in Daytona Beach has been running them for years, on both rigids and on his "touring" Pan that uses late square swingarm, disc brake, diaphragm clutch, electric start, police suspension front and rear, etc. I never really looked at the fabrication, but he used to ride it to Sturgis, so it must have worked well.
 
#13 ·
Hmmmm. What is the little air reservoir for? On-the-road adjustability maybe? The truck seats I've had would hold air in the spring for weeks or months if the valve was tight.
 
#14 · (Edited)
You made me think about this one.

Call it spring travel, if you consider the bladder to be an air spring. With just the bladder, squeeze it down a little and the air pressure goes up inside it correspondingly. With the reservoir in the system when you squeeze the bladder, more air has to be compressed, thus you'd have to squeeze it farther to get the same rise in air pressure.

Made me think about something else, too.

On the example of the police setup, with the rider's weight at 2/3 to 3/4 of the length of the lever from the fulcrum, you'd only get 2/3 to 3/4 of the travel of the air spring at that point. With the solo seat at closer to 90%, maybe you'd want a reservoir a little smaller than the stock HD rather than about 20% bigger, like the seat post would be.

I'll have to do some measuring and some more math. My friend George still has a stock police air seat on his '98 FLHRP, and probably on the '15 FLHTPI he just bought that I haven't seen yet. Physics 204 seems like a long time ago.
 
#15 · (Edited)
I got around to mounting it. I messed with the air pressure up and down. When it's just high enough that it doesn't bottom out when I slam on it it feels amazing. Nothing like a stock spring seat- super soft. Can't wait to try it on the road.
 

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