don't think that it would matter if 4wd was down and the hubs were out....i'd take the tunnel off, its gonna take you 5 mins unless all the bnolts are seized and you need to use the one size fits all seized bolts tool. I had the same problem once and it turned out that the spring was weak / broken on the yellow knob and it can back up ok witha screwdriver when 'manipulated' changed the spring and it was ok. Something may have got jammed there, could be a bunch of silly things, tunnel out!!
du ya need a special spanner for them bnolts???