Did you have to back off the motor mount support frame and tilt the motor along with taking the driveshaft off? Or were you able to get underneath and back off all the bolts on the tranny without touching anything else?

 

Just to pay it forward, the solution is to just loosen most of the divers side until you can barely see the crack between engine and tranny (1/16" opening). Then just take a vice grip and pull the release fork. I did the long way by taking the header and propeller shaft off and everything off just to be on safe side, but if someone gets into the same situation, I would just get as many tranny bolts loosen as possible and then pull the fork.