For many days I've been trying to figure out what I'm going to do about the wheels for this plane. I have to start thinking about it now because the original wheels were custom built for this plane and there's only one left. It's a beautifully machined magnesium wheel with integral drum for brakes. The wheel is about 9" diameter. The original tire was a 400 x 100 made by Dunlop Aero. Since there's nothing like that available now and because I need some new wheels to go with it, I had to do some serious research. Because the gear retracts, there are serious considerations to the diameter AND the thickness of the tire and wheel. The original tires were skinny things. And because of the the way the gear retracts, there is no provision to change the amount of travel of the retraction without serious changes to the levers and mechanism that operates the retraction. The landing gear retracts via a motor that only spins one way. You retract the gear by powering the motor and allowing the mechanism to raise the landing gear. When it's fully retracted you stop the operation of the motor and the mechanism stops in what I'll call top dead centre. When you want to lower the gear, you power the motor again and the mechanism continues in its original direction until you get to bottom dead centre. I'll post a video of it in operation when I get a chance. So the long and short of it is that I need some uniquely sized tires and wheels.
I eventually found some aircraft tires that are slightly smaller in diameter and marginally wider. And they don't cost an arm and a leg. Adding to that, I found that Matco (www.matcomfg.com) makes an huge number of different styles and sizes of wheels and brakes and I think I can make a set fit.
When the aircraft had its accident, the lower sections of the gear were damaged. One of the forks was twisted and the second one was ripped right off. So I needed to make some new forks anyway. I will make them to fit the Matco brakes and wheels. This will be an upgrade from how the plane was originally set up.