Hack the old pipes out?. You have to remove the bolts from the flanges to get the pipes out and remove the turbo.
Watch some videos.

 

The spaces are kinda tight, and the up pipe bolts will be hard to break free, but it’s not that hard to do. But yeah, sounds like you need to watch some videos to familiarize yourself with what it takes. No you don’t want to hack the up pipes to get it out. Not sure how you would do that anyway, I think that would be harder than removing it properly

 

I’ve watched about 4 hours of removal videos by now.

It seems that if I could sacrifice the piping and by upgraded new ones with the money I saved doing it myself, I could have more leverage when dealing with rusty and heat cycled connections. Not to mention not having to deal with reinstalling old rusty parts.

Maybe not literally taking a sawzall(if even possible) but committing to new parts so I wouldn’t have to worry about taking the old ones out gingerly.

 

Well you don’t need to take them out anyway. Unless you are changing the passenger side up pipe because of the riser for the egr. But even then, the best thing to do (in my opinion) is this- Get everything ready to take apart, shields off and downpipe disconnected from the exhaust. Start it up and let it run for a few minutes to get some heat in the exhaust components- not hot but warm. Shut it off and then get your downpipe removed and then get the up pipe bolts broken loose before it cools off. Then you can get the oil drain off the back of the engine, remove the oil feed, remove the coolant hoses, and then the turbo mount bolts and pull it out.
It’s easy for me to say how to do it, because to me it’s easy- usually. Anything can happen, and one broken up pipe bolt can add a lot of time to the job.

 

Just did my first one on an LBZ. None of it was technically hard but, just like others have said....the tight spaces will have you make up new cuss words. A short(er) breaker bar was helpful. Extension combinations are important. 12 point deep and shallow is a must. For short periods I would have wanted a second set of hands....not worth asking someone though unless they are close by. I'm a fan of Kroil and they didn't let me down. Soaked bolts for a week morning and night and was able to remove 12 up pipe bolts, 3 pedestal bolts and 16 exhaust manifold bolts without breaking any. I did some hi flow exhaust manifolds so you would not need to remove that many bolts. Point is a broken bolt in the wrong location changes things. Go ahead and remove the oil fill neck and plug the hole. Either keep a blanket on the hood latch of remove it as well. If you climb into the engine bay as many times as I did, you'll thank me for that pro tip.....lol. Cut a piece of plywood big enough to sit on the drivers side engine bay (maybe 18x24 or 24x30). I had a scrap piece that was close to those dimensions. It will give you a place to land the turbo while you regroup to take it the rest of the way out. Or have a second set of hands on stand by. Take your time if you have that luxury.....Its not rocket surgery but if I had to go fast or "needed it for work on Monday", I would have been nervous as a cat. I had all my parts ahead of time so i would still go back and watch videos at different stages along the way.Turbo only, I probably had a day and a half in it. Good luck with it!

 

I just did a turbo replacement on my lml and it got pretty annoying at times. It’s not as bad as some people make it seem. Not sure hacking the uppipes will make it any easier. You still have to get those uppipe bolts off and that’s what the difficult part was for me anyway. They’re just in a really tight space and hard to see but stay persistent and calm and you’ll get them eventually. One thing I would note is when putting the turbo back in, make sure you put the bolts on the bottom of the of turbo before you bolt the uppipes back on. First the oil drain nuts, then the base bolts for the turbo, then the uppipe Bolts. I made the mistake of doing the base of the turbo bolts last and i ended up having to remove the uppipe bolts in order to get those base turbo bolts in. Good luck man!