The second hardest to me was getting the bolts loosened from the ring gears. They have thread locker on them. I ended up buying some much needed air tools and was well worth it.
My advice if your going the count method:
Punch/mark as described online BEFORE you remove caps/rings... but also mark where the rings finally come out. This will make it much easier to re assymble them back exactly how they were.
There is one write up where you "carefully" remove the caps/rings together and dont actually unscrew the rings. I 'highly' recommend counting and unscrewing the rings.
Yes, an air impact makes removing the ring gear bolts much much easier.
No need to mark where the rings finally come out though. They will only reinstall in one specific place.
I agree that I don't recommend trying to remove and reinstall the caps and rings as a set.
Another thing is to make sure you put the caps, rings and bearing races back on the same side that they originally came from. Mark them all, or only work with one side at a time (while cleaning, reassmbling, etc.) to make sure you don't mix them up.