Welded shift fork ??

greetings fellows Zders, first post here

I have this nice '73 240z in need of tranny work, so i started

working on it yesterday. I'm now to the stage where the shift forks

need to be removed, but to my surprise, these are welded to the fork rods

and can't be removed without grinding the welds first !!

There is no mention of these welds in the factory shop manual.

The trany is a 4 speed type B

So, my question is: Are they supposed to be welded ? Do i need to re-weld them during re-assembly, has anybody seen this before ?? :stupid: