2004 R1150RT Transmission Shift Lever Bolt Removal

Looking to remove the transmission shift lever attached to the left footpeg plate for overall bike spring cleaning and bushing replacement. Lever is a bit loose, I think due to bushing wear. The retaining bolt will not budge. No nut, just a threaded boss on the inside of the left footpeg plate. Does the bolt threads have lock-tite on them. Could not get the bolt to break free. Heated bolt head a bit and still no movement. Has anyone had experience removing the lever and bolt? If so, how did you do it? Wondering if I need to add heat to the opposite side of the footpeg plate, but don't want to risk discoloring the sided of the footpeg plate that is visible. Could this be a left hand thread for some reason?
Advise appreciated.

Thanks,

bewareboy said:

Looking to remove the transmission shift lever attached to the left footpeg plate for overall bike spring cleaning and bushing replacement. Lever is a bit loose, I think due to bushing wear. The retaining bolt will not budge. No nut, just a threaded boss on the inside of the left footpeg plate. Does the bolt threads have lock-tite on them. Could not get the bolt to break free. Heated bolt head a bit and still no movement. Has anyone had experience removing the lever and bolt? If so, how did you do it? Wondering if I need to add heat to the opposite side of the footpeg plate, but don't want to risk discoloring the sided of the footpeg plate that is visible. Could this be a left hand thread for some reason?
Advise appreciated.

Thanks,

Click to expand...

I also remove mine to grease it periodically. No issues. Perhaps the last person to do yours had an excess of red Loctite on hand.

BC1100S,

I also pulled apart and replaced / greased the brake lever bushing at the same time. No problems what so ever. Very dry though, didn't look look like it had been greased in some time. PO had it serviced regularly from 04 to 08 with up to ~35K miles, then is sat more then it was ridden till 2014 when I picked it up. Not sure if the dealer would have reason to remove that bolt or not. I guess since you remove your periodically it is a standard right hand thread?

Thanks,

bewareboy said:

I guess since you remove your periodically it is a standard right hand thread?

Click to expand...

It is so. Perhaps a sharp blow with a hammer or impact wrench ?

The spec is 35 NM torque, no loctite.

Yes, it's standard thread. Some folks have had issues with that bolt coming loose leaving them with a floppy shift lever or unable to shift at all. If that had happened previously (or PO read about this) it's possible they tightened the bolt with loctite on the threads.

This thread is jogging my memory of the last time I removed my left side footplate. There was at least one bolt, accessed from the inside (rear wheel space, behind the muffler) and it was left hand threaded AND all those left side bolts had loctite on them. I cannot recall exactly which bolt it was but I believe it was part of the muffler hanger and went through the plate. I finally realized the thread was backward while heating it up and going back and forth on the bolt as I thought it might be stripped and just wanted to get it out and replace it at that point. The bolt was fine, just a reverse thread.

Thanks everyone for your input. Finally got it out today. I did a little Google research and found several pics of a new shift lever bolt and they all had blue lock-tite on the threads. I also found a location on the inside of the footpeg plate close to the boss threads that was accessible to MAP gas flame. Little heat and out it came with little effort and lots of blue lock-tite. Heat... amazing stuff. Now with the bolt out, I cleaned up all the hardware and replaced the 2 bushings on the shift lever. Did not use lock-tite on the bolt during the reinstall. The shift lever doesn't have any looseness, as it did before. Only observation is that now the shift lever does not move up and down as easily as before. If I loosen the bolt it will drop back down under its own weight. If I tighten the bolt up snug, the lever will not drop down under it own weight. May loosen up with use. Hopefully not an issue with the transmission (shift drum and shift forks).