Saturday, Aug. 8, 2026

Its been a productive day here in the Shade Tree Garage. At noon today, I met with a young man in Mount Washington to purchase his compact spare tire out of his Cadillac CTS. The bolt pattern is 5×115 mm, which is NOT an exact fit for my 55 Chevy wagon, which has a 5×4.75 inch bolt pattern. Its close, but not close enough. Everything I’ve read recommends against forcing the metric rim from to work; it puts the studs under a lot of pressure and will surely induct wobble if tried.

So I went on Amazon and found a pair of adapters to mate the Cadillac spare on my Chevy bolt pattern hubs. The Caddy wheel is 16 inches, which shouldn’t pose a problem since its just for use as a spare.. I have a mounted tire on a correct Chevy rim I could use as a spare; the problem is that the tire and rim are a little too big for the spare tire well in the floor of the cargo area. I have adapters on order, but if by some chance I actually can take the Chevy to the Tri-Five Nationals, I will likely try to deflate the tire and see if I can make it fit the spare tire well. I can reinflate it if necessary.

My hope is that the compact spare will give me the room to place the scissors jack and jack handle in the spare tire well. We’ll see if that works out. My adapters are supposed to arrive on Wednesday. If they do, I’ll throw one in the spare tire well just in case it is needed.

TAIL GATE CHEVY EMBLEM. For the past year-and-a-half, I have owned a brand new Chevrolet emblem for the wagon’s tail gate that’s been sitting in its box all this time. Why has it been sitting around for 18 months?

The issue is that the square rod from the outside tail gate handle won’t release from the latching mechanism. I have sprayed it with Kroil periodically; I have beat, banged and pried on the latch and handle, trying to separate them. The latch mechanism is in the way of screwing the nuts on the studs on the back of the emblem.

I decided this weekend that I wanted to try to install the emblem and use an extension and a swivel joint to get the nuts installed. Well, there was precious little clearance for the extension to enter alongside the latch mechanism. I tried numerous times but just couldn’t get the nuts started on the studs. With the latch in the way, there was no way to install the nuts on the damn emblem.

I was ready to throw in the towel, though I had test fit the emblem and studs and damn, the emblen looked freaking great! It was so nice to have that emblem in place of seeing the four mounting holes staring at you. Now I know the weather forecast looks like we won’t drive the wagon to Tri-Five, but I still wanted to install the emblem. So how should I do it after failing all day to mount it??

CUT-OFF WHEEL TO THE RESCUE! I decided I wanted the damn emblem installed one way or the other. There was no way I was able to do it with the latch still installed. So my only way forward was to cut an access panel in the area below the latch mechanism of substantial size.

I started out with my battery powered cut-off tool, and finished the cut with a pneumatic cutoff tool. Cutting that access panel was exactly what I needed to do — I could get my hands in the panel as well as a ratchet and socket. I installed the four nuts on the emblem’s threaded studs and tightened them up.

I plan to tack weld the panel back in place now that the emblem is securely mounted. I decided I will NOT weld up the cut around the entire thing; my plan is to put several spot welds to hold the panel securely. For whatever reason, I’m not going to weld it up permanently. Since I’ve not been able to separate the latch mechanism from the square rod on the handle, there may come a day in the future when I will need to go back into the tailgate innards. I would rather have to cut half a dozen spot welds that cut welds around the entire perimeter of the panel.

The emblem looks fantastic, by the way. Give the tailgate a truly “finished” look, which I love.

OTHER TRIM FOR THE WAGON’S FUTURE? I want to add the V-8 emblems below the tail lights, These were not factory installed since the car was an original 6-cylinder car.

The car originally had 210 level trim, which included chrome above and below the side windows wrapping around to the tailgate. The car came with most of the original chrome. I haven’t checked it thoroughly, but I think we’re missing a piece or two of that trim. There’s no other optional chrome for the 210 trim level.

And if money was no object, I would buy a new rear bumper. For now, the existing one will work, lol.

Tomorrow, I’ll spot weld the panel back in place.