Do you have a pic of the fork lowers and any other bits?
I had a Judy race recently (gifted to a mates build I did for him just so he'd have a better fork alongside all the other upgrades I did), it was an sl iirc and coil only.
Without knowing for sure what fork it is, I can't be certain, but springs alone don't do much other than bounce, not much in the way of damping.
The taper that you had to break on a Judy and others is the damper shaft which sits inside the upper tube, usually on one side but some Judy's had both compression and rebound ramping, so a damper in each leg, those with just rebound had a dummy damper in one side.
Was there an adjuster at the bottom of either leg? Any of the 2 bolts have a hole through the centre of the Allen hole? Can you see daylight if you look through the upper tubes? If not, there's maybe a damper in there, holding captive oil..