D7E engine side plates??

Went and looked at ours. The frame is about a foot away and it is really deep from top to bottom. Not a sort of a compact I beam like the older tractors, so it really gets in the way.

I wouldn't even take the covers off the side of the engine, just a waste of time. Drop the belly pan and oil pan. Getting the rear section out over the hard bar was impossible until we unbolted the engine on all 4 corners and raised it in the frame. If you disconnect things up front and lift the front more than the rear you can avoid disconnecting everything in the torque converter area ( lots of big oil lines back there as I remember Probably should disconnect and raise the whole frame with the engine bolted in it instead of the way we did it, but it worked ok. I think we had a Jack under the torque converter housing in the back and i watched everything from under there as we hoisted the front of the engine with a hoist from a post across the top of the limb risers. We lifted it so it hinged on the u-joint of the drive shaft.....like I said, more in the front than in the back.

You might even be able to do the job on #4 rod by letting that rear section of the oil pan drop down as far as possible without actually removing it. I was replacing the main bearings as well, so it really had to come out.

Yes. Takes just a minute with an impact wrench to get all 4 corners loose. Lots of small stuff up front by the fan shroud and oil cooler hose at bottom left front at least on a power shift. It doesn't take a lot to get the pan out over the bar, but we left the driveshaft connected, so we had to lift the front more to let it rotate up, pivoting on the u-joint.

You're talking about the rear section of the pan right? When I saw it was made in two sections, I was sure it would be easy to get it out, but the rear section wouldn't come out over the hard bar no matter what I tried. So we had to lift the engine to get the clearance.

Sounds like you may have a single piece pan?

Yes
2 pieces, a joint in it just at the cross member/hard bar.
Sorry to have given you bad info to try lifting the engine.

I guess if you can't do it through the side plates, you will have to unbolt the hold down and raise the whole front of the tractor off the hard bar.