Unchained

The shop manual said to remove the sprocket as part of the engine removal process so that's what I started doing. But the nut holding the sprocket wouldn't give. I thought about just slipping the chain off and removing the nut later, but there's a little chain guard butting almost right against the sprocket making chain removal impossible. I don't have an impact wrench or a cheater pipe so I started to cut the nut with a dremel- slow going because I obviously didn't want to cut into anything else.

After taking a break from dremeling, I noticed that there are three bolts holding that little chain guard on! I didn't see them because they were covered with grime and dirt. So off it comes, but the chain still wouldn't slip off. There was a bolt mount sticking out pinning the chain in just like the guard. I noticed one of the bolt mounts was broken off too. Nice.

Damn- nut won't budge, chain won't slip off. Now what? Why not  unlink the chain? Duh! I probably would have done that earlier, but my mind was focus on that stuck nut.