Bit of an update, no pics at the moment though.
I've replaced the bald front tyres with some really very good BKT part warns that clearly have hardly been used. I tried to get the tyres off myself, because I'm like that, and failed. After getting a puncture on or MF65 a couple of months back and paying 80 quid for a mobile tyre guy to fix it, the job looked easy enough so I bought a couple of long tyre levers and waited for an excuse to try them. When I got a puncture on the JCB rear wheel I was going to have a crack myself, but thought the inner tube had failed around the valve, so needed a new tube. Ringing around for a new one led me to a different mobile fitter who quoted me 40 quid for the tube and 40 quid to swap it out and pop on a less damaged tyre (which turned out to be pretty once inflated). He had more of a battle getting the bead to break than the chap did with the MF65...I should have taken that as a sign...
So I got the front wheels off and got to work with the levers on the front bead, nope not budging needed a proper bead breaker to do the job...or a bottle jack and the weight of the JCB which got the front bead broken in no time and then I was able to use my levers to work the front of the tyre off the rim. Speant about 15 minutes in all figuring that out and popping the front side off. Moving to the back bead and things got a lot harder...4 hours later I gave up, rang a local tyre shop, who does commercials as well, and was quoted 20 quid to change both tyres out and dispose of the old ones...so threw the wheels and tyres into the van and took them over...It took them an hour! The back beads fought them all the way even with the right tools and special lube. General consensus the fronts must have been on for 20 years plus. Still, only cost me 20 quid to get it done and some banter
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)
Next job; new door. Got lucky and found a new glass door for £250 delivered, it's a pattern part and not the greatest quality because there are tooling marks on one edge (hidden behind the seal) that I'm guessing are from the grab used to hold it during the tempering process, and the top is a little bit bowed. But it was available off the shelf, rather than having to wait to be made. Fitting it was a bit of a pain, as I've become somewhat nervous of tightening the hinge bolts. I made a replacement rubber gasket for the missing one on the bottom hinge and had quite a ding-dong getting it aligned and the hinge raised again because this door sits lower than the original did, again pattern parts for you.
So, new tyres and door repalced I thought I'd put a patch on the roof to stop a water leak around the rotted section beneath the beacon. Cut a square of 1.5mm aluminium sheet drilled holes to suit the beacon bolts and cable, cleaned the inside of the roof around the rusted section then lathered one side of the patch in CT1 adheasive, threaded the beacon cable through the central hole and bolted it up. Will do for now, and certainly will stop it leaking. I might get round to making a proper repair one day once I have my MIG back, if I can be bothered.
While I had the Beacon cable detached I thought I'd investigate why it and the interior light don't work. The was a bit of a birdsnest of botched wiring behind the trim which was quite questionable and the earth wasn't attached to the interior light. I tidied things up and then tested everything with a multimeter. There doesn't appear to be any power to the purple feed wire used for the interior light and to supply power to the beacon (Hella) pull switch. Thing is there are no blown fuses either, from what I can see the purple feed wire is shared with the hazard warning light switch, and that I know works (I fixed it), so there must be a break somewhere else. The number plate lights also don't work and were disconnected until I got to them today, but they only have a single wire going to each of them, so I'm guessing the earth is back to the body and could be suspect, I'll have to take a closer look when I have more time.