Yep, Front axle hex tool (or reversed spark plug socket) fit's it. If I remember it right, it screws into the right side frame & there is a right side retaining nut on it (behind the removeable disk) along with the left side retaining nut. Boreing writeup below...Later,,, De
Lessons learned from rear linkage lube. My ’04 FJR1300 is about 1 year old and has 9000 mi on it and I have ridden thru many rainstorms here in the Hotlanta area. After reading the many horror stories of rusted/non-greased parts, I bit the bullet to lube & inspect & here is what I found. Working from a 3’ high lift is great & having an overhead hoist above the lift is even better.
#1 Things needed: a 19mm hex socket (removes the front axle also) to remove & re torque the swing arm pivot shaft, a set of torx sockets for the one torx bolt on the front of the shifter mount, a good set of 6 point metric sockets (large ones too for re the swing arm pivot shaft nuts), a good set of combination metric wrenches, the factory service manual for the assembly pictures & torque values, a copy of the
https://www.fjrtech.com/ article on lubing the pivot points for the instructions.
#2 There was no rust or fretting corrosion on any thing and all splines & bearings were greased & all shafts had a light coating of oil on them. If I had known this, I would have waited a few years to do this job.
#3 The center stands on the pre ‘04s (with their extra added gusset) may break, but they darned sure won’t fall off because of loosened bolts. These 4 bolts & nuts were the tightest & hardest to loosen of any I have ever seen. These 4 bolts were inserted from the outside, so the exhaust system has to be pried over & down to remove the bolts. While the book says to remove the exhaust system, you can do it without removing the headers by removing the muffler bolts & exhaust bolts to the center stand. When remounting the center stand, insert these 4 bolts from the inside so the exhaust won’t interfere. On the front 2 bolts I used a thick flat washer under the bolt head and purchased 2 thinner nuts (blue thread locker too) for proper exhaust clearance. I made sure that the weight of the bike was on the center stand before tightening these 4 center stand bolts/nuts.
#4 Remember which way the relay arm (the dog bones attach to the center of this) goes or you might have “falling rate” suspension. The arm with the bend in it goes to the back & is hooked to the Shock. A while back someone posted pixs of his relay are where he added grease fittings to it but I elected not to do this because I couldn’t see how the grease would get by the outer race of the needle bearing unless these bearing housings have a grease hole in them. Any ideas on this, guys & gals? Is there a hole in the bearing housing? I do believe that a grease fitting will work where there are 2 needle bearings separated by a space as in the center of the relay arm and on the swing arm.
#5 Remove the right muffler & the swing arm will have enough clearance to drop out.
#6 Didn’t pull the drive shaft out of the rear end cause it gets it’s lube from the rear end. Did remove the “U” joint and lube both splines with Moly lube. Looks like the “U” joint could go in either way but the splines on one end have a lead in bevel to help when inserting the drive shaft.
#7 Single best improvement was from lubing the shifter arm pivot, but it wasn’t from the added grease. This pivot is a shoulder bolt w/2 thrust washers & a “wave” washer & the proper clearance (read no slop) is obtained by screwing in the bolt till the wave washer is slightly compressed. The bolt is locked in place with blue thread locker from the factory. My bolt was too tight & was binding the shifter. You can easily check this by removing the upper shifter arm from the tranny shifter shaft & seeing that the foot shifter arm moves freely & isn’t binding. Mine was way too tight but I couldn’t tell it cause there is no slop in the linkage, until I disconnected it from the tranny. After removing the shoulder bolt & greasing it, I reinstalled it (with new blue thread locker) without binding it. What a difference. It shifted fine before but now it’s like warm butter. This shifter maintenance can be done by itself by removing the “Shifter/footpeg/sidestand” assy but this assy will have to be removed to remove the “U”joint.
