1980 KZ440 LTD Belt Adjustment

Hello, everyone! Sorry if I lack any proper etiquette here since this is my first time posting and I am a new user.

A tad bit of back story:
I have a 1980 KZ440 LTD D (Belt), which I have recently gotten to fixing after an unknown problem occurred last summer. Any time I would put the bike into gear, it would make a terrible grinding sound and I would get no power delivery to the rear wheel at all. After a ton of digging, researching, and taking the entire clutch apart, I found out that the output shaft's main bolt that holds the engine pulley for the belt in place had somehow come completely loose. The extra play from being loose led to my engine pulley becoming stripped completely, which is why I had zero power transfer to the rear wheel and the bad grinding sound. I already went about tracking down replacement parts and now have them in my possession. And here I get to my problem/question...

The Main Question:
Because the original engine pulley was completely stripped, it was able to just slip it off. However, I cannot just slip on the new one since it isn't worn out. I checked my Clymer manual and the original service manual, and it mentions possibly having to take off the rear wheel for a new pulley and belt installation, but my original belt is fine and is still on it. SO, what I want to know is can I just loosen both belt adjusting nuts, the rear torque link nut, and the rear axle nut to let me move the rear tired forward enough to let me slip the new pulley on with the belt, to make this as quick and painless as possible? Let me know what you think!

Thanks ahead of time for any advice/light you can shed on this!

That should work just fine as long as the splines on the output shaft aren't damaged. How do they look? Was the lock washer missing?

Firstly, thanks for the response! I did end up giving that a go last night, and sure enough I was able to get the new pulley installed. To answer your question though, the splined lock washer was missing. I think a previous owner may have done something that involved removing it and forgot to put it back on or something. Luckily, the splines on the output shaft weren't stripped or even chipped at all! They looked great! In the end, I got the new pulley installed with the new lock washer, got the belt tension set and the rear wheel set, and then I took the bike for a ride. She ran great! First time in over a year that I've been able to ride it, so I was very happy. I attached some pictures of what the old pulley looked like after pulling it off, what the output shaft spline looks like, and what the new pulley looked like on the shaft (you can see how nicely it fits).

I am glad it worked out so well. That missing lock washer is probably what caused this whole mess. Without it, the nut can come loose and let the pully get all wibbly-wobbly. It is surprising that the damage was not worse.
Happy trails......

I'm happy it worked out nicely as well! Yes, I had a hunch that the missing washer played a large role in this. However, I was very relieved when I found that the output shaft was completely intact! I guess I got lucky this time.

Ride on, man!