UPZ mod for tall feet

[jburk]

While I do like my 16/17 UPZ RC10s with the new-style tongue, even with a molded Intuition liner I've had to be careful not to over-tighten the 3rd buckle.  It's been a very fine line between "almost zero heel lift" and feeling a too much pressure on the top and medial side of my arch which leads to a fair bit of discomfort after an hour or so.  

Then I saw a post in one the MountainSlope .951 threads, where someone mentioned that the UPZs used to put a lot of pressure on the top of their arch, and switching to the .951s with the different angle of the buckle over the arch eliminated that sensation.  And around that same time, I saw @SunSurfer's post about eliminating heel lift by relocation the arch buckle.

And since the warranty expired on my boots a few weeks ago, I was inspired to take a drill and dremel to my RC10s.  To get the arch buckle/strap to pull the heel down and back, I relocated the 3rd buckle back and down as close to the ankle pivot as possible, and move the strap up and as close to the ankle pivot as possible.

Drilling the rivets from the buckles was easy, and Dan @ UPZ confirmed that the hardware that ships with a replacement buckle (t-nut, screw, and washer) is the same h/w for the clasps.  So I ordered enough clasps to provide h/w for relocating the buckles, and fired up the dremel.  I had to grind out a small bit inside the boot to allow the t-nut for the 3rd buckle to sit flush (it was on the edge of the dimple for the original rivet point), but otherwise it was pretty straight-forward. 

Visually it doesn't look like the 3rd buckle strap has moved much higher on the arch, but it's made a world of difference in the way the boots fit and feel when tightened down.  Zero heel lift, and only a sensation of my foot being "firmly held" without it feeling like it's being ever so slightly crushed, even with the 3rd buckle tighter than before.  I think the most significant change was moving the medial pivot point for the strap up and back closer to the ankle.  Before, I used to feel a lot of pressure on the medial side of the arch, now that is distributed along a flatter section of bone just in front of ankle. 

 

Had to add the small "pull tab" on the 3rd buckle, in the new location it sits so flush to the boot when buckled down that I couldn't get it open with gloves on.

[AcousticBoarder]

On 4/1/2018 at 2:55 PM, jburk said:

While I do like my 16/17 UPZ RC10s with the new-style tongue, even with a molded Intuition liner I've had to be careful not to over-tighten the 3rd buckle.  It's been a very fine line between "almost zero heel lift" and feeling a too much pressure on the top and medial side of my arch which leads to a fair bit of discomfort after an hour or so.  

Then I saw a post in one the MountainSlope .951 threads, where someone mentioned that the UPZs used to put a lot of pressure on the top of their arch, and switching to the .951s with the different angle of the buckle over the arch eliminated that sensation.  And around that same time, I saw @SunSurfer's post about eliminating heel lift by relocation the arch buckle.

And since the warranty expired on my boots a few weeks ago, I was inspired to take a drill and dremel to my RC10s.  To get the arch buckle/strap to pull the heel down and back, I relocated the 3rd buckle back and down as close to the ankle pivot as possible, and move the strap up and as close to the ankle pivot as possible.

Drilling the rivets from the buckles was easy, and Dan @ UPZ confirmed that the hardware that ships with a replacement buckle (t-nut, screw, and washer) is the same h/w for the clasps.  So I ordered enough clasps to provide h/w for relocating the buckles, and fired up the dremel.  I had to grind out a small bit inside the boot to allow the t-nut for the 3rd buckle to sit flush (it was on the edge of the dimple for the original rivet point), but otherwise it was pretty straight-forward. 

Visually it doesn't look like the 3rd buckle strap has moved much higher on the arch, but it's made a world of difference in the way the boots fit and feel when tightened down.  Zero heel lift, and only a sensation of my foot being "firmly held" without it feeling like it's being ever so slightly crushed, even with the 3rd buckle tighter than before.  I think the most significant change was moving the medial pivot point for the strap up and back closer to the ankle.  Before, I used to feel a lot of pressure on the medial side of the arch, now that is distributed along a flatter section of bone just in front of ankle. 

 

Had to add the small "pull tab" on the 3rd buckle, in the new location it sits so flush to the boot when buckled down that I couldn't get it open with gloves on.

Wonder if this would help me.. I had stumbled on the same posts you had too. I have a high arch and instep and have done a few things to eliminate the pressure over the foot, but at times it still feels too tight. Is the asymmetrical layout you chose to distribute the pressure to the side of the arch? 

[SunSurfer]

I chose that point for attaching the base of the third strap in my original mods both for the angle in relation to the heel and for the thickness of the boot shell at that point. 

I chose my attachment point for the buckle side to create the strap angle I was after, centred on the apex of the heel. 

Edited April 3, 2018 by SunSurfer

[jburk]

I did the mods to get the heel pulled back and down to reduce or eliminate heel lift (still had a bit of lift unless I over-tightened the 3rd buckle), and I got that - zero heel lift now.  What was an unexpected bonus was how the sensation of my forefoot being squished disappeared.

I think you could most likely do this mod in two stages, first move just the strap and see how it works for you.  Moving the buckle was a bit more involved. 

Relocating the strap moves it towards the buckle by 3cm.  Each hole in the strap moves the clasp 1.5cm. If you currently have the clasp in the last or second to last hole in strap, you may be able to get away with moving the strap and then moving the clasp 2 holes to get the same buckle-to-clasp distance.

I picked the same spot as @SunSurfer for the angle (and it's easy to locate on the shell surface), but I ground down the shell so that the strap fit flush so that I could use the original hardware without worrying about thread depth.  I figured that ground down, it would be at least as thick as the shell at the original location.  The only tricky bit was setting the tongue bolt in the hole, it's not a regular t-nut:

I used a longer M6 bolt with a small stack of washers, threaded it through the shell into the tongue bolt, and tightened it up to set the tongue bolt. I used the conical washer from the strap on the bottom of the washer stack to prevent the shell from dimpling up around the bolt collar (smaller diameter is only slightly larger than the collar on the tongue bolt); that collar is what the strap pivots around, so it needs to protrude cleanly the shell.  Take a look at how the collar on the bolt protrudes above the shell when you first remove the strap, you'll get the idea.

If anyone wants more detail, we can move this into the Hardboots forum, this is threatening to get too far off-topic from "carving central".    

[DRUPI]

edit, really easy to do
these are my old UPZ modified with non-original pieces. € 5 cost    

[daveo]

On 4/2/2018 at 2:56 AM, Corey said:

I was modifying some stiff tongues to try on my UPZs with the 2016+ tongue modification, so I made a video to help those that don't realize how easy it is: 

After making this, I realized that I should have recommended going straight to the adjustable wrench. The T-nuts are probably going to spin in the shell - better to prevent it. 

Consider yourself SUBSCRIBED

[Corey]

3 hours ago, daveo said:

Consider yourself SUBSCRIBED

Hope you like American-style autocross! (not Euro autocross buggies)  That's 90% of my YouTube uploads. 

[Hans]

I have had the same problem, but also that my feet are not equally in length. I just let foamed a Boot doc innerliner, problems are away. I can even cranck down my 3th buckle after warming up a few teeth.

[roch]

Did anybody figure out a consistent way to hold the square side of the screw using an adjustable wrench just keeps slipping, and the star side is about to strip so before I drill it asking here.

Edited August 4, 2022 by roch