RB Timing Cover R&R - Cork Gasket

My son's doing a cam swap on a 440, in vehicle. It's certainly not rocket science but looking for tip involving the cork section included in the timing gasket set.

Tried gluing the cork section to the oil pan lip but found we could not compress it enough to get the timing cover over the dowel pins in the block without fubering the dowel pin holes in the timing cover. We don't want to have to loosen the oil pan either. Any tricks to getting the cover in place, short of ditching the cork piece and running a bead of gasket maker in its place? Don't want leaks and that would be a fair void to fill.