It can stick a bit but a few good whacks with the plastic hammer should have broken the bond where you can start to wiggle it. Unless of course you're missing a bolt hiding on you somewhere. I did it on the m52 timing cover, I pryed on that sucker for a good while, nearly broke it, and there was a hidden bolt right in front of me, like right in the middle
I remember 28 bolts, 19 of the short ones, the 3 etorx on the transmission, the two long ones in the half shaft you mentioned, the two medium ones in the rear cover, and then the two longer ones in the rear cover. Do you have good lighting under there? These headlamps are the best,
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I used the torque wrench of course, but after first test drive there were three of the bolts leaking. They needed another quarter turn. I did use a chaser tap to try to get resistance out of the holes for a better torque reading. Maybe I needed to do that better. I was fortunate in that all the bolts were somewhat accessible with the subframe in. I'm not sure about running it to get it up to temp with out having the subframe and the mounts. Silicone thread sealer on the bolt threads as well. Good luck, it is a massive job but it's very rewarding.
Also if you got the bolt kit from FCP Euro it is wrong on these cars and you won't have enough of those long bolts. I told them about that and told them to fix it but I doubt they have. That delayed me another couple days.