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Boot Maintenance of the Dynafit Kind (ZZero and others)

By Lou

If you’ve got many days on your Dynafit compatible boots (such as I now do on my beloved ZZero), check and make sure your heel fitting screws are tight. Give them a firm twist with a screw driver to evaluate. If loose, simply tightening them may be all you need. In my case (they were slightly loose), I figured it wouldn’t hurt to remove my fittings and bed in epoxy. To do so, I simply backed out the screw, popped the fitting off, cleaned the parts with wire brush, then re-installed the fitting with a SMALL amount of JB Weld on all mating surfaces. Don’t use too much glue, as the bit that oozes is difficult to clean out of the slots in the boot. Epoxy won’t stick well to the boot plastic, but it fills up space and in theory keeps the fitting from making micro movements that might loosen or weaken the screw.

Any excuse for some tool time between backcountry skiing trips. ZZero Dynafit boots get some attention.

Come to think of it, if you’ve had a big winter, now would be a good time to check the clearance between your boot heel and binding, as well as your DIN settings. While doing so, rotate the heel unit with your hand and make sure it doesn’t feel catchy or grabby. If so, back out the spring barrel, pull out the spring and thimble bushing (check bushing for wear)and lubricate with any light machinery grease. Instructions here.

WARNING: It’s all too easy to cross-thread the spring barrel when assembling the Dynafit binding heel unit — that can get expensive. With this in mind, take care if you do lubrication and wear check; don’t bother unless the binding feels like it needs lubrication. More, if you know a good Dynafit mechanic consider turning the job over to them.

Posted by Lou on April 30, 2008 | Filed Under Boot Reviews, Gear Mods

Comments

6 Responses to “Boot Maintenance of the Dynafit Kind (ZZero and others)”

Nick Lewis April 30th, 2008 3:55 pm

Hey Lou,

Thought you’d be interested to hear the following. This winter I have witnessed two cases of the metal heel fitting of Dynafit-compatible boots failing. The first was in the Tetons where the heelplate on a friend’s Garmont Mega-lite simply unscrewed and fell out. Luckily we found the pieces in the snow a few yards behind and were able to screw it all back in before making a quick descent to the valley. These Megalites were 3 seasons old and probably had the best part of 200 days on them. After this I was careful to check my own Mega-Rides and discovered that one heelplate needed to be tightened up ever so slightly. Since then I have checked them regularly and had no problems.

Last week’s occurrence was a bit more serious. A bunch of us were up at the Balu Pass above Rogers Pass when someone tried clicking in and discovered that the heelplate on his 4 year old Lasers had gone. This time however, searching around in the snow produced nothing. So he stepped in hoping the plastic heel cutout would be enough….. Despite locking down the toe, the dust-on-breakable-crust soon meant he kept on popping out :o(

So we screwed down his TLTs to the smallest possible boot-heel gap and wrapped a 4-foot long 1-inch wide cam strap around the underside of the binding heelpiece and passed it around his instep. Tightening the strap made it totally solid and we were able to make a swift exit down the Connaught drainage back to the road with no problem, but obviously there was no release capability. These Lasers had as much time on them as the Garmonts but with descents of Muztagh Ata and Logan as well. Back in Revelstoke, the very helpful ski-tech pointed out that whereas after a long hard life the screws eventually come undone on the heelplate of Garmonts, on Scarpas the screw usually just snaps. This was the case with the Lasers where he had to drill out the remains before inserting a new screw and heelplate.

As scary as it could have been (we were meant to be in the midst of the Yoho Traverse and had only baled the day before due to bad weather), this second episode did reinforce for us how extraordinarily field-usable Dynafits are – if a heelpiece broke on Fritschis, Naxos or Silvrettas, it would be a completely different ballgame. But one thing we wondered is why the heelplate isn’t molded into the boot like the toe-piece? Why do boot manufacturers rely on screws here? Any ideas? Most people I have spoken to have never seen or heard of this failure but after two episodes in one winter I am sure to check my heelplates. I’ll also carry some spares in future for sure. I’ve carried a camstrap in my repair kit for many years and here was yet another example of it baling us out of trouble.

Many thanks for an excellent website, it’s an extraordinary resource.

Cheers

Nick
Lou April 30th, 2008 4:04 pm

Thanks for posting that Nick. Everyone, please note that the boots Nick describes had large numbers of days on them! The point of this post is to give you all a heads up on keeping those heel-plate screws tight. A few minutes of maintenance now = no headache later for you or the warranty department.

As for why the fittings are screwed in and not molded? I’ll check on that. Might have something to do with what works best in the manufacturing process.
Carol Evenchick May 1st, 2008 3:13 pm

Hi Lou:
I have a problem with one of the dynafit metal heel inserts on one of my boots. The tip of one of the little wings that sticks out to the side has broken off. I’m missing about 2 or 3 mm of the tip. I brought the boot to one of the better shops in town to see if they could fix it, but they said that they are not allowed to. A safety/liability issue I guess. They called Garmont in Italy, and the Garmont folks said to send the boot to them, and they would decide whether or not they will fix it. It would take a month minimum. The boots are Garmont Mega Ride (Ladies), 2 and a
half years old.
Oh, last detail after reading the previous Nicks posting. I have only used the boots in dynafit bindings about 20 ski days.

So, I have a few questions.
1) have you heard of this problem before?
2) do you know how boot companies deal with it?
3) I have managed to find an old boot with a heel part that hasn’t been used, so could do the exchange myself… do you see any major problems with this??
4) any recommendations???

many thanks,
Carol

ps, in case you are wondering, I suspect it broke while I was walking down a metal grate stair case, but I’m not certain.
Lou May 1st, 2008 3:23 pm

Carol, anything can break. I’ve seen almost all backcountry ski gear break in one way or another. For gear to be light and efficient it can’t be totally bomb proof. That applies to all gear, not just Dynafit. I’ve seen boots break in many ways.

You can put the part in you got from the donor boot. Doing so is trivial. Put a bit of epoxy steel on the screw and on the mating surfaces when you do. Tighten firmly but take care not to strip the threads. It’s really not a big deal, but if you’re uncomfortable with the work just take it to a ski shop that has a mechanic with a good reputation (and helpful attitude).
Seth March 27th, 2009 12:30 pm

Haven’t seen much mention of this on the site, but I just discovered that the plastic of my Zzero PX 4 buckle boots failed at the metal toepiece insert- the plastic underneath/behind the fitting failed the same way at all four points.

I’ve skied them for just under 1 year. I’ve heard through the grapevine that this happened to a few of these early generation boots.

Local ski shop took care of me with some loaner boots and is dealing with warranty…(Pays to shop local I guess)

Anyone have any perspective on this issue?
Toby Wheeler January 28th, 2010 6:00 am

Lou’s advice re the heel inserts in the boots is great. I wish I had read it a week ago as I am living in Kyrgyzstan on and off and lost one of the heel inserts last week. There was lot of wet snow around and a lot of icing up and I suspect that hastened the process of losing it. Undoubtedly is was loose but I never checked it. Getting another one here is a bit challenging. I may just get a couple from Boulder and have someone bring it over for me (but that is a month away); meanwhile I am going to have a machine shop here manufacture one for me. Thanks for the site and to all those who contribute.
Toby