Salvagable Block?

Best-case - leave it alone until you have ALL the money for an engine. Then have it machined, assemble it, and get it running. It's totally pissing money away to machine or clean it, then leave it anywhere. Even my heated garage will generate some rust over years of sitting. If you can't afford doing it all, wait until you can. If you have to do the body - do that first.

this is my line of thinking. All I want to do is stop the rust from getting any worse than it already is. I would think all the rust would have to be removed first.

Cosmoline would work well. I never could find it. Never thought about Amazon.