No, you don't need to remove the swingarm, it makes the job easier if you do but you don't have to. You need to support the transmission as War Horse said, then you need to remove the left side nut on the pivot shaft, use a drift and drive the shaft far enough in so you can remove the leftside bushing. Once the bushing is removed, you have just enuff room between the swingarm and the frame to feed the belt thru the gap... Again, it's easier to do this job by removing the entire swingarm but you don't have to to change out the belt... But if you remove the swingarm you have to remove the rear wheel as well... If you do the job as I have explained, you don't have to remove the rear wheel... When your working in a shop on flatrate, time is money... The quicker you can get the job done, the more money you make... In your case, you can take your time and not worry bout it
... Take care... T
Wasn't able to edit my post quick enough, you also need to remove the bottom shock bolt so you can feed the belt thru with the rear tire still mounted in the swingarm... By doing it this way, it saves you about 30 minutes of time changing out a belt... Course, that's just me... I wrenched under flatrate for so long that when I do work, I do it the quickest way that it can be done, I still haven't adjusted to being retired
...
