Nikon SB 24

Does anybody have a repair manual for an old Nikon SB24 flash?
I dropped mine and smashed the red cover on the front.  I wanted to check the extent of the internal damage (thankfully minimal) and at the same time see if it was possible to fit a 3.5 mm jack socket to simplify the connection to external triggers (it looks easy enough).  During this process a small spring appeared on my desk.  There is no obvious  function for this tiny component and the flash seems to work perfectly both electrically and mechanically without it.
However, I have lingering doubts and would find it very helpful to see a diagram and parts list if possible.
Thanks to anybody that can help. 

Opening up any flash is dangerous, since the capacitor can hold a deadly charge, even with dead batteries in the unit. I wouldn't open a flash, since I don't know how to properly discharge a capacitor.

+1

The capacitor is in the the flash head part of the unit behind the tube and can be discharged with a wire and resistor.  The modification I intend to make is to connect a jack socket in parallel with the existing sync socket.  It should be a lot more reliable than the multiple adapters that I am using at the moment.  The voltage on the sync terminal is just under 4V with the flash on, which drops to zero several minutes after the batteries are removed.   I haven't found any high voltages on the circuit boards in the body of the flashgun.