Surface rust on cylinders of 383

[javakmcharger68]

Have a 383 with a little surface rust on them in spots on cylinder walls.Just where the heads were off & the piston was down in the cyclinder a bit. A guy was telling me that I would have to get them bored out. I'm talking about a little surface rust, but enough a hone would have to be used. Whats the deal, is this guy right. How much is too much? Hard question to answer, but it bugs me. thanks

[max]

with out seeing, it would be hard to tell but as long as it isn't pitted you should be alright. i had a block one time where i used 220 grit sand paper to clean it and then i used a hone that ran off of a regular 3/8 drill with lots of oil on the bars and it cleaned up so that i could store it with out any farther damage.

[javakmcharger68]

Well the rust is coming off with 1500 grit sand paper, & seemed to be cleaning up fine. I used the hone in one of the worst cylinders last night after buddy left & like you ran it with a cordless drill. The rust is all off & you can see where it was because I didn't want to go at it too bad, but theres no pits, or I can't feel or see any. So in another cylinder I tried the 1500 sand paper & it was cleaning up fine. Only had a little peice of 1500 grit at the time, so I couldn't get right into it. If the guys right I don't mind saying it, but he was one of these guys who is trying to tell me how much knowledge he knows on the subject.  He kept on saying " it will keep on bleeding out unless bored out & redone" What that all about?? Sorry about no pics, my camera died last week. You should be able to feel pits after the cyl wall is almost clean of rust shouldn't you? Or is it so close that you can't tell by hand. Thanks again

[max]

if the 1500 cleaned it up then it wasn't bad. i have seen cylinders that were stained but that doesn't mean that they were pitted. if you have a hard time feeling it and actually seeing any pitts then you should be ok. but only a true machinest can tell you if the cylinders will need bored.

i have been in a bind a few times and built engines that had rust worse then that and never bored them but they weren't pitted. i just cleaned them up like i mentioned above and had a hone run through them from a machine shop and gotten away with it as a street engine but that is a worse case situation.

clean the cylinders up and coat them with wd-40 so they don't rust anymore, i use wheel bearing grease on cylinders that i know will get bored later but i have seen that stain the cylinders really badly. i was also told by a couple of machinest that grease will trap moister and cause them to rust quicker but i have yet to run into that problem but i guess it is possible.

[javakmcharger68]

Thanks for the reply. I feel better hearing that.