The biggest headache fitting EGR was getting that nasty hinged clamp to fit the flared hot pipe. It’s like a tiny version of the horrors we used to have on British car exhausts. It’s really hard to keep the pipe ends aligned while doing up the bolt.
This was with the engine OUT OF THE CAR. I can’t imagine the struggle underneath the inlet manifold.
My solution would be to block the exhaust gas supply either at exhaust manifold or at the large diameter flange on side of EGR. That will throw up error codes. But there are solutions for that but you can buy kits purposely drilled for the job.