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Just did this a few months ago, same engine MW describes. I was hung up at about the same place. In my case it was after the driveshaft splines were disengaged, but before the shift rod was fully extracted. Had some difficulty trying to pull the end of the shift rod through the narrow round opening way up in the exhaust housing that seemed to have a rubber grommet of some sort in it . The end of the rod has a bend in it and is flattened for the screw hole, so I had to wiggle and jiggle and force it just a little bit, to get the end out of the grommet. I did sweat it a little about getting it back together, but it seemed to go back in a bit easier than it came out.
Jim