01 Surburban Transmission Pan

[oldcycler]

I did the 50,000 mile transmission service on my 01 Suburban the other day and ran into a lot of trouble. I drained the fluid through the plug, removed the heat shield and shift linkage and removed the pan bolts. This is where the problems began. The pan would not clear the exhaust pipe. The left exhaust pipe crosses to and joins the right pipe at the rear of the transmission. The pan would not clear the pipe. There are some electical connectors and some sort of selinoid (I think) that hang down so the pan you can't move the pan forward and down away from the transmission.

I was able to change the filter and clean the surfaces with with resulting gap but could not take the pan completely off to do a good cleaning. It was also quite a pain in the butt to get the new gasket put into place.

Does anyone know how to get the pan off with out disconecting the exhaust pipe from the manifold?