There is a lot to be said for not splitting your chain, there is always a worry that you won't install the master properly, so it'll fall apart at several thousand RPM, causing catastrophic damage, or alternatively, making it too tight, causing a "tight spot" on your chain, and risking some other kind of catastrophic damage.
Of course, if you can master the black art of correctly joining your cam chain with a "soft link", you'll rob yourself of the pleasure of having to split your cases, replacing seals that weren't previously leaking and primary chains that aren't actually unserviceable, but you've decided that you better replace while you've got the cases apart. Hell, it's only money..........
Then you can enjoy the hours of excitement of cleaning up the mating surfaces of the crankcase halves before applying (carefully) a thin bead of case sealant and rejoining the case halves, hoping that (1) you haven't blocked an oilway with sealant, and (2) you've chosen the correct sealant and your cases won't leak.
If you do decide to split your chain, the method that I use is to grind the ends off the pins of one link, then just push that link out. The ends of the pins on the master link are dimpled so that they can be spread slightly to "rivet" them into the end plate of the link. You can buy a special tool to rivet them over, or you can use a hammer, centre punch and "dolly" (steel block) to do this, but the tool is easier, as you can do it all with one hand. Buy it with the money you saved on seals, primary chains and case sealant.
Whatever you do, just take it carefully and you should be ok. Cheers, Terry.
