A-pillar rust on B13s, water pump replacement

[David Pertuz]

After procrastinating for weeks and weeks and weeks on replacing my SE-R's
water pump and rebuilding the rear brakes so that I can garage my G20 for
the winter, I am left with a cold, snowy day and the work undone, so I was
going through my useful-info file (still more procrastination!) and an old
message brought a question to mind.

My SE-R - a GA car for its first 5.5 years and a MI car for the last 6 -
has only one spot of rust on it, which actually appears to have nothing to
do with road salt. It is on the driver's-side door pillar, between the
lower door hinge and the lower dender attachment. I discovered this last
winter when Iw as cleaning leafy crap out of the space down there.

I thought the rust was caused by the leafy crap retaining water, but it
looks more like it started from the inside than from the outside. I have an
old message from Bob Legere which mentions this, too. Is there an avenue
for water to get into the inside of the driver's-side A-pillar? Not sure
there's much I could do about it if there is, but I'm curious all the same.

Also, when I do the pump (tomorrow? Dooooon't want to get salt on the
squeaky-clean Texas G20!) I am going to see if I can make it a little
easier on myself by either:

1)removing the dogbone mount w/bracket and the pivot bolt for the firewall
motor mount and jacking the engine up as far as it will go, in order to
give more room to access the pump (jack the RF wheel up to keep the CV
joint angles reasonable), or...

2) unbolting the crossmember from the car (as well as the pass-side mount)
and lowering the engine as far as it will go to give better pump access

I have put off the water pump work for so long because the access is such a
PITA (more so than on the G20) and I hope this might make it better. Has
anyone already tried doing it this way, by any chance?

I'll report on the outcome when I'm done.....

David