Hi guys. I'm going to be sending my rear fender to the paint shop (it has a fairly bad scratch on it... backed into my boat trailer ). I've ordered a J&S jack as it seems like one of the best out there, and been looking over the procedure in the shop manual. Are there any tricks that I should be aware of when removing/installing the fender? Is it really necessary to go over the whole alignment procedure when I reinstall the rear wheel?

 

it's pretty basic, I would unplug any wires and then remove everything attached to the fender once I had the fender off the bike, you shouldn't need to realign your rear wheel, you are not going to loosen the alignment bolts, just make sure when you reinstall the tire that the alignment bolts are all the way up against your swingarm and that way it will be in the same position it is now

 

I don't know if the older bikes are the same as the newer ones, but on mine (07) there's a bolt way up and forward under the fender. If you have small hands, you might be able to get to it, otherwise, you'll want to unbolt the lower shock mounts, which will drop the wheel enough to reach the bolt. Other than that one bolt, I had no problems swapping fenders out on my bike last month.

 

So . . . you did your fender swap without removing the rear tire?

 

Yep, no need to drop the wheel, just remove top or bottom shock bolts, and get at the bolt from the left side. It's a bitch, but better than dropping the wheel.

 

Right, I did not completely remove the rear wheel. If you can't reach in there to get at the bolt, just unbolting the shocks will give you enough clearance to get to it.

 

Great... I'll give that a try. The front bolt is in the position you described on my bike too. Thanks for the tip.