The innards are retained by a metal cap that is itself secured to the damper body not by weld, but a peened lip. I turned this lip off, using a mates lathe as mine is too small, then put a preload adjuster onto the shock body, held the damper rod in my vice and hit the preload adjuster (very hard!) with a socket extension and lump hammer. Eventually, the top cap popped out, followed (reluctantly) by the oil seal. Everything else then pulled out, attached to the damper rod.
What is inside the shock body.
The damper rod removed from the inner sleeve.
44 years old!
All cleaned up, ready for dis-assembly.
And the components laid bare.
Both damper rods have wear on the chrome where they travel through the oil seal, so they would need grinding and re-hard chroming. I doubt that will be cheap.
I also need to work out how to re-secure the damper internals within the shock body.
Work in progress.
