A couple thoughts. Lubriplate will harden in years, not 4 months, so eliminate that Idea. Next, not a chance in hell that any builder would ***emble a motor without lubing everything and lots of rotation during ***embly unless you hired the neighbor kid to do it in the back yard. Last thing in is pistons, usually drenched in motor oil, and again it gets rotated several times. So why did it seize ? Maine is about like the swamp I live in, tools rust in the tool box in summer here. Condensation ? humidity ? Oil it up, spin it to get oil pressure with the spark plugs out and fire it up
This is probably not applicable to your situation but might sway your decision as to take it back to the builder. The car in my avatar runs a Holden Grey engine, very similar to 1940-1950s Chev six cylinder engines. Cam gear drives directly off the the crank gear. I had the crank done, new bearings and rings, new steel gear pressed onto the camshaft and I re***embled the engine. In my haste to get it up and running and racing I ignore the fact it was really hard to rotate the ***embly even with the plugs out. I just thought it was a tight engine. Plugs in , fired it up and go racing. Eight runs at 6000 rpm quarter mile, running like a champ. A couple of weeks later running eighth mile on the second run engine quit. Rotor ****on not turning, entire crank gear demolished. I had not checked the lash between the new cam gear and crank. That was what was causing the tightness.
Studebaker V8's have a thrust washer at the nose of the crank that is shimmed to set up end play for the crankshaft. If the engine will turn fine with the front pulley/damper removed there probably isn't any shims behind the thrust washer and torqueing down the damper is locking up the thrust surface on the crank. Just a thought!
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