Hey all,

I just picked up a used 11' crossbones. I have been trying to figure out a seat combo for the wife to tag along and am running into a problem.

The bike came with a Fatboy rear fender and I have no clue which year. I would like to assume that all of the recent wide tire fatboy rear fenders are all the same, but you know what they say about assuming.

Since I don't have the stock Xbones fender, I can't measure the positions of the seat mounting holes on the rear fender.

What I would like to do is pick up a Corbin or Mustang pillion. Would be great to keep the stock Xbones seat and add the pillion but I don't have a prob throwing on a Corbin driver seat if need be. I will just switch back to stock Xbones when I go out on long solo rides. So the questions are:


- Are the seat mounting holes in the rear fender in the same location for both Xbones and Fatboy?
- Will a Fatboy Pillion (Corbin or Mustang) fit with the stock Xbones seat?
- If I order a driver seat would I have to order the Xbones main seat and Fatboy pillion? Or would the Fatboy main seat work on the Xbones frame?

I attached some pic of the fender for reference. Hopefully they maintain enough detail for folks to see them.

I appreciate all the ideas / help.

 

The seat mounting holes are the same. The stock xbones seat will fit just fine.

 

Are you sure about that? I had done the rear fender switch on my bones when I had it and the holes were not the same. First of all, there were the two side by side holes to fit the stock type system that the FB and Deluxe seats use, the crossbones fender didn't have them. Second, the hole where you put the screw at the back of your battery cover either wasn't there, or was significantly out of line with where it needed to be. Stock fatboy style seats fit no problem, but I don't think I was able to get the crossbones passenger pillion mounted at all with the existing holes.

To the OP; if the seat you have is the stock seat, check to see if there's a screw holding down the back part of the battery cover. If there is measure how far it is from there to the rear mounting hole for the pillion. Someone on here who still has one should be able to tell you what the measurements for the pillion itself are. It's possible that the hole holding down your battery cover might have been drilled by the guy who did the fender swap. When I did my swap I didn't bother because it didn't make a difference since the seat held it down without the screw anyway.

If you are using a conventional type seat and there are two bolts at the back holding it on then you should order your new seat to fit a Fatboy. If you aren't set on the crossbones style pillion anyway you can get pretty much any fatboy style pillion. Just make sure what you get it you know whether it's a standalone pillion or if it needs to be married up with they seat. It shouldn't be too hard to find a used stock seat off a fatboy for cheap so that you can try it out.

 

You will not be able to use the stock Crossbones passenger pillion. Also, so long as you are running the plastic battery cover under the sprung seat you will not be able to run the stock style (or ever after market) pillions made for the Fatboy because the two mounting holes that Fatboy pillions use are now covered by the plastic pan. Anything can be done but not without modification of one type or another. You can opt to switch out the rider seat for any other rider seat that's made for a Fatboy and it's accompanying passenger pillion. However this is not as painless a swap as it sounds because in order to run a Fatboy seat, you not only have to remove the Crossbones seat. You also have to remove the front and rear brackets from the frame that hold that seat down. If your Bones is set up like mine, you would have to unbolt the ECM and move it out of the way in order to remove the rear bracket for the rider seat. Then you have to install the stud plate from underneath the fender that provides the two threaded studs where you bolt down the stock style Fatboy seat and pillion. All together it takes about 25-35 minutes to do the swap.

I have seen many people tackle this issue in different ways. Some drill a hole in the fender where the plastic battery cover has a hole for a screw to hold it down to a stock Crossbones fender and then run a Crossbones pillion. However, the angle of the mounting tab on the pillion will be to straight and in some cases, people have reported their pillion seat pan cracking under the weight of the passenger. I saw another member who drilled two holes in his battery cover to allow the two threaded studs for the Fatboy seat to poke through. Then they secured their stock Fatboy pillion on as normal except that the front of the pillion sat on top of the plastic pan. This probably works okay but I would wager that over a short period of time, the weight of the passenger bearing down on that plastic battery cover will cause it to crack. If not it will certainly cause the battery cover to rub into the paint underneath it, severely damaging the fender's finish.

I tackled the problem a whole different way. I purchase a used plastic seat pan off another forum member and trimmed it so that it would accommodate the pillion that I wanted to run. In my case I chose the stock pillion off a Springer classic which mounts in the exact same way as a Fatboy pillion. I installed the battery cover then installed the pillion, bolting it only at the rear tab and letting the front just sit on the battery cover. Then I marked a pattern on the cover where I would cut away in order to let the pillion clear the plastic cover and rest on the fender as it should. It took sever cycles of cutting, fitting, and trimming to get the cut just right. Once everything is mounted you can't tell that the cover is cut unless you know what to look for.

I will take a picture of what everything looks like mounted when I go to lunch and post it so you can see how mine turned out.

In the meantime, here is a link to a thread I wrote which may explain things a lot better. You'll have to delve into the thread to see where me and some other members start to tackle the pillion issue but there is good info there.

https://www.hdforums.com/forum/softa...nder-swap.html

 

Thanks for all the info Skeez. That helps a lot.

I saw the touring setup pics you posted of your Xbones and was wondering if you wouldn't mind sharing whose seat/pillion you have on that touring setup?

I also noticed in that thread that onequick1 posted a pic of his setup as well which he got a decent looking pillion with his stock seat to work. I am going to try and get a hold of him to see which seat he used and what he had to do to get it to fit.

http://www.twincityconstruction.com/harley/cross1.jpg

I pulled my battery cover and it appears the previous owner cut a relief in the rear mounting bracket, identical to your setup. The battery cover is not bolted down in the back, it simply has some rubber tape on the fender to prevent the cover from rubbing through the paint. The cover just rests on rear fender. So I think I am in fairly decent shape to do some seat/cover modding.

Thanks again.