There was progress today. I was going to do a step by step pictorial but the battery was dead on the Iceland camera and my phone wouldn't stop ringing. Anyway, at this point I had a charged battery and got a pic of all the paraphernalia cleared away and getting ready to drop the engine.
One last step, pull the fan shroud. Gotta say, the fan looks in real nice shape.
Okay, the gurus at the cx500 forum say an engine drop should take 2 hours or so for the first time. Well, four hours later, here we are.
Heavy little bugger, 160+lbs. This is where I stopped for the day. Gotta scrounge two more 4 x 4s to get it up to a comfortable working height. Confidence is high that I caught the cam chain in time, no sparklies in the oil. The tiny coolant leak I couldn't find is found, it is either around the temp sensor or the sensor itself.
More pics tomorrow when I open up.