How do I remove the seat lock barrel?

[GS500F2004]

I am trying to remove the rear LHS cowling/fairing and I removed all the screws and bolts, but I need to remove the barrel to remove the fairing completely, how do I do that?

Fiddled with it for a bit, but I am unsure so I don't want to break some part accidentally.

[GS500F2004]

I just removed the U-shaped retaining clip, now what?

[007brendan]

You shouldn't have to remove the seat lock to remove the rear plastics, there is one screw on top and then they pop off.  You have to remove the rear grab bar and the small piece of plastic that connects the two rear panels.  Do you have a service manual?

[JAS6377]

Actually, I just did this about an hour ago while working on my tail light. After removing the grab bar (2x 12 mm bolts), all of the bolts (4x 10 mm: 1 on each side, and 2 under the grab bar), and popping the fairings out of their rubber bushings, the fairings will be held on by the seat lock. All you need to do is pop the cable out, just like a clutch/throttle cable. Then, gingerly slide the plastics off (LHS, RHS, and center as one piece) over the tail light. No need to remove the cylinder or anything else.

Edit: That little guy that I'm pointing to.

[GS500F2004]

Hey guys, I actually looked up the Gixxer forums as someone had posted the same question awhile back and got it done a few hours ago now. Thanks to those that responded, may it help someone who is looking at this in the future.

Not a hard job but can be a pain in the arse.

You just have to remove the U-shaped retaining clip with some needle-nose pliers, pop the cable out where it's held in place by that plastic clip like thing (in my case it took some ridiculous force as it was pretty stuck), turn the cable around and it comes out, the barrel then is loose.

Next I had to remove the fairing on the other side as well because they were both connected by some small black plastic underside. I have a Ventura rack on so I couldn't get underneath it with a screwdriver to remove the small black plastic bit. Had to remove the tail-light, then slide both the fairings underneath the grills of the rack, unscrew the screws, and then discovered it was locked by some small black edge clipped into the fairing from underneath which was part of that small black underside. After more fiddling it came out.

When trying to put everything back together again I discovered one of the bolts holding the black handle at the rear of the fairing wouldn't go back in properly, fiddled around with washers for half-an-hour and just decided to screw it in as best as I could. Then I wasted more time trying to get those two nasty screws that are right at the end of the ducktail connecting both the fairings with the small middle section in, as my luck would have it I had misplaced my magnetic screw driver so had to leave those two screws out for now as it was too far to reach with the hand.

After putting it all back together I realised I have two more screws, and I have no idea where it came from 

What should have taken less than 1 hour became 3, happy days.

[adidasguy]

Oh, 2004 tails.
You do un-clip the cable from the seat.
After you remove the bolts holding the plastics to the frame, you gently pull out at the seat because there are a couple nibs in rubber bumpers in the frame.

Then, the entire tail has to be removed backwards - gently pull backwards off of the tail light.

This is different than the 1989-2000 tails which can easily separate at the rear and each side removed by itself.

#1: The tail after being removed (this one doesn't have the seat lock, which stays in the tail when you remove it)
#2: The tail so you can see the 2 nibs that go into rubber grommets in the frame. Careful you don't break them.
#3: The tail from the under side. You can see everything screws together and has to be removed as a single unit.



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[BockinBboy]

I bought a very strong magnetic screwdriver for the sole purpose of removing and installing the screws in tail centrepiece while on the bike (note: not removing the centrepiece, just the two screws for it)...  I have a SW-Motech Alu-Rack, and removing the rack vs the grab bar is quite the task if you only want to remove the tail plastic for something little... so I work around it.  Still comes out around the tail light, but I have to separate the tail plastics slightly by removing those two screw on the centrepiece to introduce a new angle to the regular procedure... doesn't stress any of the parts, so its works for me.

- Bboy