We’ve had some very nice weather recently, and 
I decided to go for a drive. I had the new engine running pretty well–all four cylinders were firing, the idle speed was reasonable, and the car had plenty of pep. In fact, things were going so well I decided to reinstall the hood.
I headed out for a quick drive up New Hampshire Avenue. About two miles from home the engine began to sag and then it stopped. I pushed in the clutch and turn the key to restart. Nothing. I let out the clutch for a jump start, and the rear wheels locked. What was going on?
The car was clearly not going to drive home under 
its own power. I called AAA and 40 minutes later, the Sunbeam was on a truck.
Back at home, I considered the evidence. The engine seemed to be seized, or frozen. The starter would engage, but it could not turn the crank. I tried with a wrench on the crankshaft pulley bolt, and again, frozen. There was oil on the dipstick. I remember looking at the oil pressure gauge at the first traffic light, and it showed 30 psi. This is on the low side for this car, but nothing alarming. Just after I installed the new engine, I noticed that the oil pressure gauge was fluctuating and sometimes showed zero. I decided that the gauge was at fault because when I hit 
it, the needle bounced up. A big mistake?
The day before the fateful ride, I had noticed some engine ping on acceleration. I put this down to the new engine’s higher compression and the fact that I had lower octane gas in the tank. Another mistake?
I removed the oil pan and took out two bearings. On the right is a rod bearing, and you can see that it is scored, most likely from a lack of oil. It should be shiny and without linear groves. In short, it is toast.
It looks like I made two large mistakes: (i) I assumed that the oil pressure fluctuations were misreadings; and (ii) the pinging noise I heard was probably bearing noise. In sum, I have a cooked engine.
Sunbeam 