Has anyone removed the oil pan on a Countryman R60 All4?

The manually says you have to remove the transfer box, but I'm not 100% sure why. It doesn't look in the way.
That makes a fairly simple job a big job.

Thanks!

 

Have you been under the car yet? Triple check that all the bolts are accessible. It’s pretty tight under there with the transfer case.

 

There is one bolt that will give you a problem. Indeed the transfer case is in the way of it. Only one bolt though, the rest are accessible once the exhaust is moved.

Some have said to loosen up some bolts on the transfer case, just enough to shift it out of the way. As in it doesn't have to be completely removed. Personally, I couldn't figure out how to do that. Instead, I grabbed a handful of 1/4" drive 8mm sockets from a store, and ground them down into thin wall sockets with a bench grinder. I made one that looked paper thin before I was able to get the bolt out.

When I reinstalled the trouble bolt, I should've put the bolt in the hole, and lifted it in the pan when putting pan back up, then getting a couple of turns on the bolt. Kind of a three handed job but can be done. If you don't do that, it's darn near impossible to get that bolt back where it needs to go. I cheated, and cut a few mm of thread off the end of the bolt, so that I could maneuver it back into the hole. I do NOT recommend doing what I did. You could make the bolt too short (I did and had to order a new one). You could more easily strip the threads of the mounting hole. Your risk of cross threading goes skyward if you don't know how to de-burr the end of the bolt. You could end up giving up and deciding one missing bolt won't hurt, but it will.