Diesel Engine Surface Rust

[Captain Graham]

Hello All,
I have a Westerbeke 20b two diesel engine on my Watkins 27 Sailboat.
2 years ago I cleaned the engine and removed the engine grease.
Some of the engine paint also flaked off.
The areas without paint has developed some surface rust.

What do you think I should do?
1. Nothing it is just surface rust.
2. Use a rust remover and then coat it with some kind of rust preventer.
3. Other

Thank in advance for your advice.

[rslifkin]

If it's just light surface rust it won't hurt anything. But if you can clean it up and repaint those areas it'll look better.