Modified Three Brothers Performance Backrest

Some of you may have seen or might even have a 3 brothers backrest on your bike. I bought one over a year ago and loved it. However........ It is not very good for two up riding for the passenger as it basically takes away space for the passenger and forces them to have to put their legs at an awkward angle making long distance rides uncomfortable at best. So for the sake of my wife, I went and ahead and removed it. As my back was somewhat uncomfortable during long rides, the wheels in my mind began to turn to figure out how I could make this backrest work and I came up with a solution. There are many options out there for a backrest but most of them come with a hefty price tag. That is why I was deadset on making this one work. So here is what I did.

1. Cutting of plastic on stock butt rest.
My neighbor is an upholsterer and also a motorcycle enthusiast so he understood exactly where I was coming from. I invited him over and showed him the problem we were having with the back rest while my wife was on the back of the bike. We pulled of the cover and foam to expose the white plastic frame for the butt rest. Basically, I traced an outline with a sharpie of the areas that I thought could be cut without affecting the integrity of the plastic frame. There is a lot of plastic on the top and sides that can be cut with no problem whatsoever. After this, I even decided to trim a little bit more of the sides so my wife could have a little extra room. Next, I used a jig saw to cut on the sharpie lines removing all the unwanted portions of plastic. I then gave the plastic frame, and foam to my neigbor. He had all the tools for cutting the foam so he did this and wrapped it back up with a fresh vinyl covering and stapled. While you can't see the plastic, you can tell from the pics below that I did a fairly substantial amount of trimming with the jig saw. Yet it still looks sharp and the back rest blends in well with the entire seat and most importantly much more space for the pillion and a much happier wife. In the pics below, you will see the new seat on the bike. Next you will see the new back rest as compared to the old one for comparison.















2. Modified the "L" Brackets
You guys know the little "L" brackets that are used to anchor the stock butt rest as well as the three brothers extension. I decided to further enhance my wifes comfort and mine as well to simply have a welder change the angle of the brackets. I had him take off 15 degrees of angle to them (Note: Later on, I used a hammer and a vise to take the angle back 3 degrees as 15 was a bit much). In essence, this made them more of a true "L". This really gave my wife a good amount of room and enable me to sit up a little more straight and not be so slouched. Very good for my posture and riding comfort. In the pictures below, you will notice where i had the welder "beef" up the angle as well in the bracket so that it would be less likely to bend if I leaned all of my weight back.






Results
The modification has been sweet. We took a nine hour 300 mile ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway, U.S. 321, and U.S. 25 and my back did great and the wife happy with the space. I did make one change. I decided that the 15 degrees was a bit much and took it back 3 degrees making it 12 instead of 15 by hitting on the "L" brackets using a vise and a hammer. This was more an adjustment and my being a perfectionist but it made a difference and now it is perfect. My back has never felt better after a long day of riding and the back rest looks fantstic. Even with all of this, there is still a small degree of adjustabity in the rest. I you want to further fine tune it, their are 4 pieces of rubber hose that go on the 4 screws that anchor the back rest to the three brothers extension. You can trim these hose pieces slightly to make the anlge of the rest more straight up or more back depending on your preference. Just be careful and don't trim too much though as the bolts could get into the foam. All in all, a great mod with great bang for the buck. The welder charged me $15.00 for the weld and the seat was wrapped by trading my wifes pet grooming services as the upholsterer has a dog in need of a groom. For those of you who have this rest and are having this problem, it may be a solution.

It looks very nice.

I like using the leroybeal modification, but the factory buttstop really does stick out a lot at the top. I have only had my wife on the back once or twice, and she said she was fine (she's a little thing at about 115 lbs), but I kept thinking that her legs would be stuck underneath the bottom of the backrest.

I don't think that you are a perfectionist - you're just somebody who knows what he wants! Glad you could make it just right.

The Leroy Beal mod does look nice. You could still modify the metal "L" brackets if the back rest had you sitting up and too far forward or backwards if that was the case. One hot tip I do reccomend is to have a welder beef up the angle of the "L" bracket a little bit so that it will not bend when you lean your weight back onto the rest. When you lean back, the rest tends to go back some and this is probably especially more true for a heavier rider. I do like having the padding at the bottom on mine as the sacrum portion of my tailbone does hit the padded area some. I noticed on his site that he said he didn't have a need to add padding for him personally but that is simply personal preference so to each his own on that front. Even with the Leroy Beal Mod, I can see the back rest portion taking away some of the room from the passenger. For those who have done the Leroy Beal Mod and are having a room issue with their passenger, all of the steps I took above for cutting the plastic and removing the foam and re-wrapping should achieve the same result.

My problem is I had too take the butt rest off plus the plastic brackets, now I still have to put up with the little unpadded spots where it all bolted down. Has any one taken this too the next level and cut the pan or ground these smooth for more room and comfort. If so has this caused any problems. Can't help it if I'm all backside(5'11 3/4" 320lbs got a big rear section when sitting)Hope someones done this before so I'm not flying blind, also how do you recommend covering the screw holes and where the bars slide in.
Thanks
Craig

crahar wrote:

My problem is I had too take the butt rest off plus the plastic brackets, now I still have to put up with the little unpadded spots where it all bolted down. Has any one taken this too the next level and cut the pan or ground these smooth for more room and comfort.

Someone drilled the rivets in the center and removed the plastic bits. I will be doing the same soon.

I have already done that but it still has two raised spots under the seat cover that put bruises on your back side after about a hundred miles of riding. I find it a lot more comfortable without the butt rest and was hoping to find out about getting rid of these bumps. As is I picked up a sheepskin seat cover for some sort of bucket seat and cut it down to make a slip type cover but can still feel these spots. Guess I'll have to bite the bullet and tackle it worse I can do is have a couple of holes through the seat pan which would have to be fiberglassed or something. Open to suggestions.
Craig

crahar wrote:

I have already done that but it still has two raised spots under the seat cover that put bruises on your back side after about a hundred miles of riding. I find it a lot more comfortable without the butt rest and was hoping to find out about getting rid of these bumps. As is I picked up a sheepskin seat cover for some sort of bucket seat and cut it down to make a slip type cover but can still feel these spots.

Are the bumps on the flat or sloped portion of the buttrest??

I have an Airhawk under my Alaskan Sheepskin.

I have the Utopia backrest with the buttrest removed. I can adjust the Utopia backrest forward, which allows me to sit forward without touching the sloped portion of the seat.

Craig, can you post a photo?

Here ya go, the slope where the slits show up thats where the bumps are.

here are some of my rug

fastens under the seat with three elastic straps

Not the best of pictures but hope you get the drift of what I'm trying.
Can be adjusted forward

This one shows the 2 meter no ground antenna I'm using(borrowed design) not sure if I'm going to leave it mounted as is.

crahar wrote:

Here ya go, the slope where the slits show up thats where the bumps are.

I believe an Airhawk or anything that would raise up the seat (under your sheepskin) would help you to resolve this problem.

Do you have anything you could temporarily put under your sheepskin for a simple test? If not goto Walmart and purchase the gel seat cushsion, after you are done you can return the gel seat cusion. You could test with a single gel layer or fold over for a double layer to see if either would resolve.

This simple test would let you know if some height would resolve your discomfort. If it does you can choose later what you would like to have under your sheepskin.

Are you able to tilt your backrest more forward??

I Don't have a backrest on mine. I have to apologize to ronjr009 for hijacking his thread I should have started a new one instead of answering posts on this one.
Craig

I Don't have a backrest on mine. I have to apologize to ronjr009 for hijacking his thread I should have started a new one instead of answering posts on this one.
Craig

Hi Craig,

One option would be to remove the seat uncover and grind down the bumps and recover. That is probably what I would try although there would be some time involved and not fun to do now since it is the riding season. Maybe that could be a winter project. This option would give you the most room and enable you to use all of the available seating area. If you can give up a small amount of space, then I would try Bill's suggestion and see what you can put underneath the cover that would pad them enough so that you won't feel it. It might be that you can find something that works well enough so that your happy to simply use that and won't have to go the first option.

Ronjr009 I have tried the padding route but it takes up value-able rump space(made a pad out of excess sheepskin) gonna try the gel pad next.
Thanks
Craig

I had the same problem when I raised my backrest (made my own off of LeRoy Beal's website). Since I have a Honda Reflex as well as a Silver Wing, I measured the backrest from that, and it is quite a bit narrower. It bolts right onto my Wing with raised brackets, and my girlfriend can ride with me again. You can order just the Reflex backrest online or from a dealer for around $50.00 or so.