Anyone pulled the oil pan on a 533?

Servic manual says to raise the engine and drop oil pump. But looking forward I'm not sure I'll be able to reattach the pump easily.

I'm replacing all the control arms and steering linkages as well so thought I could remove the front subframe & leaving the egine on jack-stands. That would allow the pan to drop easily.

However I'm nervous about removing the sub-frame in case the ladder frame shifts or something - maybe I wouldn't be able to get it back on.

Anyone done this? advice?

your way will work, but you'll still need to suspend the engine and take it off the mounts... in fact, your way would be far easier even when taking these extra steps..

I say this because I've done it with the cross-member still on... it sucked.

I did some more reading & I think I'll just pull the subframe off. I'll put it the mounts on jack-stands & pull off the control arms and I'm done. Should be much easy. I'll probably replace the oil pump too so I don't have to do this again anytime soon.
thanks for the reply.

np, man... I managed to get mine done WITHOUT removing the oil pump... that was not worth the added effort... not even close.

Ok well for starters you deffinatly Don't need to remove the subframe. Trust me i've broken two oil pans on my 533i. So i've deffinatly had some practice replaceing it. all you have to do is remove the sway bar and unbolt the engine mounts. Then place a jack under the pasenger side of the engine mount. jack it up a few inches till you can stick some wood or something under the mount to hold it up. then move to the drive side and do the same thing. U only need to raise it up like 2 inches or so to get the pan off. Before you go replaceing that extreamly expensive oil pump take it see if it is good. if it feels tight when you turn it u're fine. if it jiggles around a lot then pull it out and just replace the only two moving parts inside the pump. its a peice of cake! If ya have any more question feel free to ask.