After a good stripdown and clean, I had a look at what was there. The answer was: not much. John's last ride on the bike, just before Christmas 1967, had ended in a low speed spill, after which he seemed to have stripped most of the road stuff off. Bearing in mind the idea is to improve the chassis, that left just three useful items: the engine, frame and fuel tank.
I eBayed almost everything else in an attempt to raise enough dosh to buy the new parts: 18in wheels, more modern forks and shocks, light aluminium mudguards, slightly more rearset footrests (Hitchcock's do a Bullet kit) and so on.
Then, amazingly, my friend Gary Inman rang asking if I could rewire his Project Enfield Street Tracker project, due on the front cover of the next issue of Sideburn magazine http://www.sideburnmag.blogspot.com/. His offer: if I built him a custom loom he'd give me everything left over from the project. I almost ripped his arm off. The haul included two 500 Bullet wheels from a 2009 EFI model, some forks, a seat, a speedo, some switchgear, and various smaller parts.
The front end bolted straight in.
The back needed a little bit of machining at the excellent Qprep of Oundle, Northamptonshire.
