Oklahoma City NSRA show

[RICH MUISE]

Went to the NSRA show in OK City yeasterday(not with the '57). A few rain showers early but turned out to be a great day. Probably in the neighborhood of 1500-2000 cars, with at least a 1/2 dozen '57's!!! My biggest excitement to see a car though was when I spied what I thought was the front end of Bob Burdorff's '57 Custom (Street rodder cover car)off in the distance. I made a beeline for it, and it was his, Bob was there with the car with his wife Jackie down from Wichita. Bob's car has been my inspiration for years since I first started seeing it in the magazines, so I was just thrilled to actually get to see it in person. Bob is a Ford Freak, as his business card says, so we didn't have too much trouble spending an hour or so talking '57's.
Bob had a minor altercation between his front bumper and a pole the day before. He's going to be looking for a Chrome shop for either repair on his or starting from scratch on a solid oem one. If I had known, I could have brought him my old one. At any rate, he wasn't sure his could be fixed, I think it could be in view of the fact his already has the smoothie work done to it. Here's some pics, and also some of a really nice Ranch Wagon.

[RICH MUISE]

ran into a glich while posting...
The wagon has the wheels I was looking for but found out they were out of production. It has the same 235-70/15 tire size on the back as mine.

[57AGIN]

Rich:

Those are a couple of nice looking 57's.  I like the look of the front smoothy bumper and the grill looks great, too.  I'm not going to customize the grill on my 57 at this time, but I could change my mind sometime in the future.

Bob
57 AGIN

[RICH MUISE]

I've always said I thought Burdorff's grille was the best I had seen imho. I got to get a close look at it. The outer profile was nicely done one-piecing it and filling in all the voids that would be left after removing the center portion. I was surprised to find the strips were aluminum, not ss as I suspected.

[KYBlueOval]

I've always said I thought Burdorff's grille was the best I had seen imho. I got to get a close look at it. The outer profile was nicely done one-piecing it and filling in all the voids that would be left after removing the center portion. I was surprised to find the strips were aluminum, not ss as I suspected.

Rich, if you know, what did he use for the center section? It looks very nice from what I can see.
Thanks
John

[RICH MUISE]

Just a guess, but 1/8 x 3/4 alum. strips. If I were doing one, which I may down the road, I'd go with ss so I could weld them as I can't weld aluminum. I should have looked closer at how they did the bend in the middle. I had already figure I'd do that by pie cutting them most of the way thru, bending, then welding. He did say he only has to polish them twice a year. The hard part is one piecing the outer profile and filling in all the voids left by removing the oem center section. Have a look at your oem grille and you'll see what I'm talking about. Hard because of the thiness of the grille material. Not too many are proficient at welding sheet that's probably .020 thick or so. good enough for plating.
Bob may have his wife join the forum. He is legally blind, so computers are now out for him.
I'm a little slow sometimes. I was wondering why his license plate said '57 BURD. I'm thinking it's not a '57 T Bird, so what's that about...then I realized it's the first 4 letters of his last name., lol
I talked with him this morning to pass on some info about Roger Vasholts's place, btw, and he told me his car was picked for the winner's circle at the show...not to surprising, but nice to hear.

[jumping jack flash]

Rich, I see a lot I like here , starting with the arrangement of pulleys on the engine pic. Is it a kit? I want to go with the serpentine belts, and I want the alternator on the driver's side, and the A/C on the passenger side. I especially like the Hollman/ Moody Valve covers. I hope that the brackets are factory units. The kits are overpriced, and I'm on a modest retirement income. No $2000.00 brackets and pulleys for me.

[RICH MUISE]

Budget didn't seem to be a major concern for him, so I'm guessing it's a complete Holman-Moody crate engine, not just the valve covers, but we never got around to talking much about the engine.