Thanks, that's my gut feeling too. I read up in the manual about removing the timing cover and ran across a confusing bit of instructions. The chapter starts out like it can be done with the motor in the car (albeit tight) but then it says to "remove the oil pump" .

Now in the section about removing the oil pump it says to remove the oil pan.

But you can't remove the pan unless you remove the motor or drop the subframe ?????

What am I missing here ?