OK, I managed to get the darn thing open without further damaging it!
Here's a bit of an how to... sorry but no pictures.
The lens is held on the camera body with 2 screws that are accessible and clearly visible when the back is removed. When unscrewed, the lens will fall down to the ground so be careful.
Now, with a jeweler's screwdriver, you have to loosen 3 screws on the lens barrel. Don't remove them, it'll save you a ton of trouble later.
You now see the lens. Unscrew it completely out. You'll be able to re-focus it later since the camera has a B setting.
Then looking at the bottom of the lens, you'll see what looks like a strange screw with 2 tiny holes. Take a small drill and enlarge the holes enough to fit in a spanner type security screwdriver. Don't drill too far, just enough to get a grip. This isn't actually a screw but a rivet with a cam that is used to lock the top plate. Once the cam is set to open (there's a flat side), slightly rotate the front plate until both locking tabs align with little round notches in the lens barrel. Remote the top plate. You'll see the shutter speed adjustment plate with the different cams. Lift it straight up. Normally, nothing should jump out at you... unless the camera is broken. This means lift very slowly
OK, now, we're in the guts of the beast. The shutter is very simple and should be quite easy to maintain. On mine (and I suspect on many others), the design flaw resides in the shutter cocking lever. It is held in place by a single screw. To minimize friction, the hole in the lever is tapered in a V shape that rests on the edge of the retaining screw. While this works, mine actually wore out. When this happens, the lever jumps out of it's place and disengages the spring. I tried putting a small washer but it didn't work...
So, there you have it. You now know how to open these without screwing up everything.
When you reassemble everything, at the point where you put the lens on the camera, be sure you hold the camera vertically (like when using it)to make sure the shutter lever is in the right position to avoid binding on the shutter release pin.
