Telemark Talk / Telemark Tips Forum

My cartridges back themselves off during ascent. They start out adjusted to Voile specs (4 - 6mm past the index mark). Voile says the threads are to be greased and mine are. I get some rubbing between boot and cartridge -- enough to buff off the red finish in spots -- maybe that's (part of) the problem?

We're talking as many as six turns of adjustment in an 800' ascent. There's nothing particularly repeatable or consistent about this either. The worst offender is typically the right side of the right boot.

Bend the rods to eliminate contact with boots? Loctite? Witchcraft?

If I had to guess, it sounds like you may have your bindings mis-adjusted so one cartridge has more pre-load than the other one. When I have an imbalance in the adjustments between the two cartridges, I notice that the heel throw is not aligned on the center of the ski and one cartridge 'pulls' more than the other one. This can cause play in the boot/binding interface, possibly causing the cartridge to unscrew.

You might be right about the rubbing of the cartridge and the boot causing it. Maybe it will get better over time as the grease on the threads dries up.

This isn't a cure, but I used to put tape on the rod to mark the spot where they should be adjusted to. This way I could easily see if they were loosening and I knew where they needed to be readjusted to.

It's the grease. I had the same problem.

I think Vibratite is the answer. And you might first try teflon tape.

Thanks for sanity check(s). Re-adjusted the darned things 4x today. Going to try a little blue loctite next.

Let us know if that does the trick.

I think the mechanism is the same on my Hardwires and I'm glad not to have this problem! I'd probably call voile and see what they have to say. They've probablt heard of this problem before and can tell you the fix. I'd hope. I can see going to a Switchback binding someday. Seems like there are quite a few Axl problem forum threads but almost zero Switchback problem threads.

dnt_upton wrote:It's the grease. I had the same problem.

I think Vibratite is the answer. And you might first try teflon tape.

I agree with this. I have had pretty good results using teflon tape (just standard plumber's pipe tape).

On BD02's I used to use electric tape (over cartridge/cable interface) to stop the same thing from happening, and it was also SOP for HH's heel tube per the manufacturer. I've heard the teflon tape many times for Switchbacks though.

TomH wrote:On BD02's I used to use electric tape (over cartridge/cable interface) to stop the same thing from happening, and it was also SOP for HH's heel tube per the manufacturer. I've heard the teflon tape many times for Switchbacks though.

Easy fix on the BD because it's all under boot.

I haven't had this problem with my Voile HW, SB, or X2's but I DO notice that new cartridges need adjusting over the first week or skiing or so as they get compressed, new springs getting their workout... after a few weeks they stabilize out.