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I'm almost done removing shock from bike to grease linkage and new oil. so, I've pulled the air box and fender, but the manual says something about a subframe or something and at the same time doesn't specify or illustate (Kawi maunal is somewhat vague). What/ how do i remove this item? Thanks

it comes out thru the top right side. its tights a tight squeeze

I pulled mine straight up.

Rick

Take the Swingarm off. ALOT EASIER

Swingarm off? Nah.... comes out the right side easy enough.... no messin' with a greasy swingarm....

Replacing the spring, might as well lube the tie-rod & so forth. The other way has always been a PITA & the Air boot is a PITA. Lttle bolts, tight space, big fingers..............ARGHHHH

The subframe bar they are talking about is on the left side; it runs from the fender/back of seat junction forward and down to near the upper drive chain roller. It is a lot easier to get the air box back in with that out of the way.

Easy enough to pull the shock out though. I seem to recall it only requiring seat removal and lower linkage dissambly? I could be wrong, and it doesn't matter because you are already in there.

If you are regreasing your linkage assembly, I'd do the swingarm bearings, too. I have not done my swingarm bearings in two years. Last night I dissasembled the linkage, including swingarm, to find the swingarm bearings rusty and toasted! All the other linkage bearings, which I had cleaned and regreased 6 months ago, were fine.

I wish I had not been lazy 6 months ago, now I get to buy new swingarm bearings and sleeves and seals

Green Hornet wrote:Replacing the spring, might as well lube the tie-rod & so forth. The other way has always been a PITA & the Air boot is a PITA. Lttle bolts, tight space, big fingers..............ARGHHHH

YES!!! I hate that damn boot.

i took the shock off, I am happy I know how to do that now, spring change or rebuild is no biggie now. Next up is the kips cleaning

definetly good idea to just take a few extra minutes and pull apart the whole lot. The bottom bearings on the rocker can get super toasted and I think I recall one side of the swingarm bearings being a little more goobered than the other. I just did mine two weeks ago. I had taken it apart last year when I first brought her home because they don't put much of anything like real grease on the whole bike at the factory.
I pulled the seals off all of the bearings and packed 'em all full of Bel-ray Waterproof. Everything looked good exept the front wheel. It had a little side-to-side so popped the bearings out to find no seals on the inner races and they were toasted-to-the-mosted. New aftermarket bearings from Jeff Fredette have seals on both sides.

One more thing I just remembered.
Take the screws out that hold the front chain slider on and dab 'em with a little never-sieze so when you have to replace the slider you can...... With the swingarm still on the bike!

holy crap! I must have had NO rebound before, because now I feel a 100% difference! all i did was ride around my yard for a couple mins. to get the bike warm, and it's SO smooth! I just cleaned and greased the linkage and it's a whole different shock. It feels SO much softer now so a 5.3 or 5.4 spring might be in order.