Can someone describe ot me exactly what your cyclinder wall should fee like?

I got the head of my 22RTE today, so I finally got a look at the guts. Apart from some coolant in the cylinders, it looked in good shape. The pistons were uniformly grey, and not much carbon on build up, no pooled oil. The head looked the same, uniform carbon build up/colour. Exhaust valves were white, intake a bit grey, but still almost shiny.

Then I felt the cylinder walls: The length of the bore was nice and smooth, couldn't feel a thing, smooth as a baby's butt. However, the top mabey "mm" of the cylinder wall was rough. I figure this might be because the rings don't go all the way to the top. However about 3/8" down, I could feel a "dip". A smooth recess, mabey a few thou deep, in a ring all the way around the cylinder. This was the case on cyl 2 and 3(didn't check 1 + 4 where at top).

Sadly I don't have a digi cam so I couldn't snap any pictures. But is the recess I've described normal. Considering how clean the rest of the internals are, it seems odd to me that I would get such consistent "nice" damage.

Thoughts?


Also while I'm here: what's the best way to pull and engine that's missing the top end? I only want to pull the engine as a last resort, I don't have the time to sit down and build it up, and don't really have the space to store it, and don't want to leave it tarped up outside in the winter.