Or recommended to be attempted without an Abba Skylift...
I needed (ok, wanted) to remove the shock to measure it up properly for a preload adjuster (hydraulic or mechanical, I don't mind). Fortunately I have an Abba Skylift amd one of the neat tricks you can pull with these is to raise the bike in what Abba call the Stoppie position.
This does pretty much what it says on the tin. The front wheel stays on the ground, while the rear heads skywards. The amount you can jack the back of the bike up is limited only by clearance between the box section connecting bar that runs under the bike and exhaust and/or bodywork. I had the passenger seat at head level and the forks almost vertical.
To get at the shock, you need to remove the exhaust end can (a two minute job) and dismantle the linkage. To do this you need to undo two M14 x 1.5 bolts, both of which are done up bloody tight from the factory (100Nm torque) and neither of which (to my horror) had any grease on them. Dry as a bone, straight from the assembly line. Then you need to undo the top and bottom shock bolts, both M10 x 1.25, which have the dreaded Torx head (T50, seeing as you ask). And you can't use any old Torx socket - it has to be a long-reach one, as the head for the top mount is buried in a fairly inaccessible location.
What is unusual is that both top and bottom mount screws bolt into captive fastenings. The top mount screws straight into the frame, the bottom mount screws straight into the linkage rocker arm. And as neither of these bolts had any grease on them, I wouldn't like to try and remove them after a few winters on salty roads... Undo the bottom mount completely and loosen the top mount to the point where you're ready to withdraw the bolt. But don't, just yet.
To make clearance (Clarence) for the shock to be removed from its steel trellis cage the linkage needs to be removed in its entirety and the swingarm raised as high as you can (tyre touching undertray high) and held in that position. I used a ratchet strap and slowly ratchetted the wheel so it was a gnat's whisker away from the undertray With that done, you can pull the top shock bolt out and slowly wriggle the shock out. Being the R model it has a compression bottle bolted onto the side of the main shock body, which further increases the fun factor.
Reassembly, as Mr Haynes would have you believe, is the reverse of disassembly. Ahem. I really can't imagine how I would have done the above (and retained my customary Zen-like composure)
without the Skylift and its ability to make deeply inaccessible parts actually quite accessible. I didn't swear (much) and I didn't leave with bleeding hands or mangled knuckles. And I've been able to properly grease bits which the factory really should have done on the assembly line.That's about it, really...