Thanks guys. Yea, seriously Dutch. Damn.
At any rate, I said fu&^ it and busted out the Dremel. No more stuck gasket. Everything went back together fairly smoothly, poured the coolant back in, checked the oil, did a triple check on everything and fired it up. No more tick tick tick tick. Took it for a normal drive and all is well. I'll double check the torque tomorrow.
Buuuut now my right turn signal doesn't work. Switch is busted. Damn.
Oh well, I'll take that over the exhaust leak and all the sh!t i went through

.
Thanks everyone for the input.
Mikey