balloon construction

I have wood, double hing windows throughout my house. When I went to open windows yesterday, several springs came lose in several of the windows. There is a small, plastic clip left in the bottom of the plastic guide on the side. There is a plastic piece on the bottom of the spring, now sitting way up in the guide. How do you repair this? How do you get the window apart to get at this? Do you have to buy whole new spring parts? In one window, both springs came loose so the window won't stay open unless I use the old board prop-up trick. In others, only one spring came loose. Does anyone have any idea why this suddenly started happening? Thanks.

We are in the midst of remodeling, and would like to put an upstairs laundry off the bathroom. The clearance is not optimal for a regular door. Could pocket doors be used in this sitution, as long as the wall was long enough to accommodate the door interior? Also, can ANY door be made into a pocket door? Thanks in advance. Zippity