Youtube is your friend if you go to the right places to see how a bike comes apart. I'm a mechanical engineer that works on my own cars, so a bike is a rather simple device if you remember the left and right hand threads part. I just dig in, but I try to remember it's not "rather simple" for other people.

You definitely need to determine if that area noted above by @choddo is a crack. That will determine if you even want to proceed.