I was tinkering around with this tonight and tried a lot of things and different tools. I already had the spears removed from the sanke keg spouts. All I had left to do was remove the SS spring-locked fittings left on the tube itself. I ended up, after using several tools, just compressing the collar enough with my fingers to get it to rotate and tapped the flanges with a hammer to totally disassemble it. This left me with just the rubber plug, ss ball bearing thing and a spring inside. A guy from my LHBC called me (curiosity got the best of him) and we walked though removing it. He and I were both able to totally remove the rubber plug/ball/spring thing while talking on the phone by inserting a screw driver into the center housing where the ball is located and prying the hell out of it. My SS ball flew across the garage somewhere to be found later... haha!
I plan to use the Freed up SS tube as a thief to grab samples from my new malt drum fermentors. I am pretty sure if I get a #6 solid stopper, I can insert the sanitized tube down into the bung of the drum and insert the stopper and pull it out to take a sample...