Arrow seat

[Timlathome]

Hi All. I am restoring a golden arrow and have no idea as to how the seat fits to the bike. I have some U shaped brackets and some U shaped round bar are they some sort of hinge, a photo would be great.

[Roger James]

Hello Tim,
Fitting a new seat to the Arrow for the first time is not one of my favourite jobs - get the fittings on the seat in the wrong place and the seat doesnt look right, either it sits on top of the dummy tank at the front or is too far back and you can see a gap between tank and seat or it sits at an angle. If you are fitting a new seat and the base has been made by Dennis Barratt then the problem of fitting is greatly eased because Dennis marks his seat bases with a pencil dot as to where to fit the two hinge brackets on the seat base and the two clips for holding the seat down, those pencil dot markings are spot but you have to look carefully to find them.
I believe after decades of manufacture Dennis has finally stopped making seat bases and the last he produced were all snapped up by BSA43 as he trades on ebay, Bill Mitchell in Stoke on Trent if you need to buy a base or seat.
As regards fitting and fittings - does the attached photo help you?
Regards Jess

[Roger James]

Hello Tim,
Since sending earlier message and photo showing seat fittings on the frame thought it might be helpfull for you to have a photo also showing the fittings screwed to the seat base, here it is, a different Arrow but just the same seat fittings..
With regard to the strap that stops the seat falling down the offside when lifted open, in the past I've used a shoulder strap from an ex army rucksack/haversack that were exactly the right width, using a hacksaw to cut the buckle off you have a nice tidy end section to push the bracket through, the other end is just cut off at a suitable length and hole punched through it, add a bit of glue if you like to stop the end fraying and the hole fraying when retaining bolt can is pushed through.
Jess

[john.nash]

Is that a wooden base ?
Was that the original way to do it..WOW...

[Timlathome]

That's great than you very much. Now I know how to fit it