1963 Wheel Covers on 15 x 6 steel wheels

[Gerald L.]

What is the experience of other 63 owners and 15 x 6 rims? Bought a set of generic Chevy (I assume) 15 x 6 wheels and mounted my new 205/75-15 radials. Needed to get off my old repo bias ply tires which I kept on my original 63 rims. Drove all spring w/o wheel covers until I was sure the lug nuts would stay tight and the run out was okay. That done it is time to mount the wheel covers. Nothing doing. No amount of careful coaxing with a screw driver will set the tabs into the rim. I know not to pound on the lip until the tabs are set in.

Obviously my first choice was to mount my 63 wheel covers and stay close to original on the road. Looks like that might require mounting the radials on my original rims. There appears to be no difference in the rim dimension, as best as I can measure, but obviously there is. Second choice is spend more money .... Corvette bolt-ons, TT-Ds, or even baby moons. I gotta drive!

[Michael H.]

Re: 1963 Wheel Covers on 15 x 6 steel wheels

What is the experience of other 63 owners and 15 x 6 rims? Bought a set of generic Chevy (I assume) 15 x 6 wheels !

Gerald,

The issue that you describe is probably not unique to your new wheels. Here's the problem.

Some/most of the 15x6 wheels floating around are actually from GM/Chev small truck and Blazer. While the outside dimension of the wheel at the bead seat is the same as a Corvette wheel, the inside diameter is not.
How is this possible? Easy. The inside dimension is smaller because the thickness of the metal that the wheels are stamped from is thicker. Enough thicker to prevent installation of the wheel cover.

Note the difference in weight between original Corvette wheels and the wheels from the pick up/Blazer.

I suppose the tabs on the wheel covers could be "adjusted slightly" to fit the smaller dim of the wheel but I don't know.

[Tom D.]

Re: 1963 Wheel Covers on 15 x 6 steel wheels

I have adjusted the "tangs" on '66 Covers to make them fit on 1969 Impala wheels. It worked well for quite awhile. (I sold the car with a set of Rally Wheels and still have those darn Impala wheels.)

The '69 Impala wheels/rims are only 5 inches wide, despite the fact many other Chevrolets had significantly wider rims by then. They were used for a few miles on a '66, so disk brakes... not a problem.

[Gerald L.]

Re: 1963 Wheel Covers on 15 x 6 steel wheels

Thank you both for the explanation. Several very judicial cuts along the backside of the cover with a Dremel tool allows the tangs to compress a little more than normal (to a scooch smaller diameter). The covers then go on with the usual extreme care.