Does your front cover look like this?
If so, maybe you would have been time ahead to just remove the front cover with the pan attached in one L-shaped unit, from the front.
What/Why exactly are you going through this exercise.
I know when I swapped
oil pans (non-dry-sump) I loosened the engine mounts and jacked the engine up slightly to give me more room. If you need to slide the pan backwards where there's no room and nothing but bellhousing, I can understand your difficulty. Which just makes taking it all off to the front seem the way to go. Hindsight is always 20/20 though.
