Intec Heels -- Newbie story and questions

[Guest hweinstein]

Hi,

I hope to educate any other newbie who tries to install intec heels, and I also have couple of questions that I hope you can help me with.

This is while installing Intec heels onto Intec compatible Raichle SB boots.

What happened:

• took off old heels, undoing four screws. Ran into no problems, and took out the liner
  

• located the hole for the Intec cable on the heel, and pushed the cable through. This worked until at the end of the cable, which was wider than the rest of the cable. It got stuck, then the plastic broke off when I forced it through the hole
  

• With the second boot, I drilled a hole using a 3/16" bit to make it easier to push the cable through. It still seemed too tight, so I drilled a larger (13/64") hole and the cable slipped through easily, until it got stuck on the end again. Not sure why I didn't just pull it out and drill a little larger hole, but I forced it again, and ended up breaking the other plastic end.
  

Hopefully at least someone can learn from my misfortune. However, here's where I need help in two areas:

• Even with the broken plastic end, the Intec mechanism seems to work fine. Do I:
  
  • a. Replace the cables before snowboard season as it's a safety risk?
    
  • b. Use them for the season, as the cable is not frayed, just the plastic end is broken?
    
  • c. Examine it in some way to determine if it is safe?
    
  • d. Follow another (better) option I haven't thought of?
    

• When securing the heels to my boots, I needed to use the screws provided, as the ones that held on the previous heels didn't fit into the holes in the Intec heels. The screws supplied worked fine on the two holes nearest the front of the boot, but are too short for the rear two holes. Has anyone else had this problem? Did you just buy longer ones at the hardware store, or do I need some special screw?
  

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to be clear about what happened.

Any help would be appreciated.

Regards,

Howard

[AaronG]

Plastic piece on the end of Intec cables?? I know that mine are metal on the end of those cables, did they change them to plastic? It would seem foolish of them to do that considering the strain put on that plastic piece when pulling on the handle to release the pins. Pics would help to determine what actually broke.

As for the screws, the front and rear are two different lengths, you can go to a hardware store and buy the longer lengths. A few of the guys here replace the screws with Allen heads to get them tighter and less chance of stripping out the Phillips head screws.

Do a SEARCH, this has been discussed many times over. Also, if you go to CarversAlmanac.com it will even list the parts you need by size and length.

[pebu]

The carvers almanac is at www.alpinecarving.com .