exploded NTN freedoms

[televisionary]

Anyone else seen anything like this? Today after a break I went out to get in my skis and saw my NTN freedoms looking like this:



Damn. The left tube on both bindings was blown out.

I'm going to deal with the distributor on this - Scarpa NA - but I was curious if I'm the first/only person that this has happened to.

[Dostie]

Ouch! Any chance you could provide a higher resolution photo? Looks like the cap popped off, but the spring is still attached, but not secured at the end anymore. Is that what I'm seeing? No? You say the tube blew out? So the casing around the spring, the tube, cracked open and the spring is now extending out the back of the tube? Might be an easy fix but it sure makes ya wonder.

[jfb]

You are not alone. Mine did that early on. It seems to be that the cap grips got splayed out and the cap fell off. It works fine, so I haven't worried about it.

[Pealer]

Same thing happened to one of mine early on. I think at the time I was playing around with really high spring tensions. Got lucky and found the cap in the snow, popped it back on and been fine since, about 30 days on snow.

[televisionary]

Here are some better pics:



I could only find one of the caps, and the spring assembly poking so far out out of the ass end won't allow me to pop it back on.

[Ddog]

Sorry, OT... but how do you like the Kabookie/Freedom rig? I'm considering that or Cham HM's as my wet coast quiver of one...

[televisionary]

Sorry, OT... but how do you like the Kabookie/Freedom rig? I'm considering that or Cham HM's as my wet coast quiver of one...

Reminds me of the old joke, "Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?"

But it's an awesome set up - the Kabookies are great. Edge holding, crud busting, good in powder. An excellent all-arounder. I got no knowledge of the Cham.

[SteveK]

For everyone who this has happened to, all blue springs, or any green?

[televisionary]

Scarpa, bless their hearts, just told me they'd send me a pair of the power boxes. No questions asked, other than "where to?"

Major props to Scarpa NA.

[md2020]

A timely post. I just had this happen last weekend. I luckily found one of the caps lying on the ground at the end of a tour. I was able to pop it back on. Blue cap. It seems that it's attached pretty well. Hope it stays on. FWIW, I'v got at least 60 days touring on these bindings and it's the first failure of any kind.

[televisionary]

I'm still curious as to what causes that. I haven't tried to force the one cap I found back on because the spring end is sticking out so far, but I'll get to that in a bit. But I wasn't doing anything extraordinary before I noticed it, so I'm wondering.

You know, JSA...just skiing along.

[md2020]

the spring was barely sticking out on mine so it wasn't difficult to push the cap on. I run mine at 1, so maybe the lower setting has something to do with it. I haven't skied it since, so we'll see if the cap stays on.

[!ski]

Maybe it is time for a better binding ... http://www.bishopbindings.com/ ... spring ain't gonna popoff the tubeplug on those badass bindings ...
... if you can get the tubeplug screwed in at all

Plus I think they can double as rock climbing aids, or some sort of marshal arts weapon.

-r

[grayson]

Yikes! That's more than a little disconcerting. Think I might have to get me some spare parts. Sounds like some of you have had luck just popping the cap back on there and continuing to ski it, yeah? You think just a spare cap or two is sufficient to have on hand in case of a failure of this kind in the field? Any ideas about the root cause and maybe a long-term fix from Rottefella?

Also, for those of you who've experienced this failure, under what conditions did it happen? What spring setting? What kind of activity? Snow packing under the binding or anything like that?

[jfb]

Mine are green. And I just looked today and noticed that the last time I jammed it back on it stayed. I took care to get all of those tabs that hold it on well seated and squeezed in. It seems to have worked.

As for how it happened, i seem to recall that they were originally delivered with it running around loose in the box and I was not patient or diligent about making sure it was well-seated when I installed it. They look like they should just press them onto the nut, but just pressing doesn't do the trick. It may need proper alignment with a screwdriver slot or something like that. I do recall that I was concerned that it would not hold at the time, thinking that the plastic might be too deformed. It had popped off several times and I was a bit surprised that it was still on today,as it has been on there for 5 or 10 ski days.

More facts for the data set.