Do you clean your Dynafit heel pieces seasonally?

I'm just wondering how may Dynafit users routinely disassemble, clean and re-grease their heel pieces.

As I remember, regular alpine bindings now have sealed bearings, in part to prevent dirt and salt from road spray getting into the moving parts. Maybe GregL will correct me if I'm mistaken. Dynafit heel pieces are not sealed, and the fit tolerance on some of the moving parts is generous, which would allow dirt to get on to the bearing surface.

I'm one of those 'compulsive maintainers' so it's not hard to guess my answer to the question.    Since I switched to randonee for ski camping I've been disassembling and cleaning the Dyanfit heel pieces at the end of my ski season. Last year I found a modest amount of dirty grease along with other bits of debris within the mechanism, but no trace of wear.

This year I found the same plus a few grains of dirt or sand near the base of the central post and on its mating part. See the photos below.  I also found some wear on the bottom of the post that was not present last year. The wear pattern suggests that grains of dirt or sand got onto the bearing surface. So far it's not a big deal, at least as long as I do an annual cleaning and re-greasing.

But then again, maybe all this is overkill. My experience has been in sailboat racing where stress corrosion is a big deal. Add salt, wear, and cyclic stress and stress cracks can propagate. You never know they are there until *POW*, some major fitting gives way!

What do other Dyanfit users do?

Larry

Larry, I woudn't know about current alpine bindings, since I don't have any skis that use them anymore, but it makes sense to use a sealed system on a product that gets little or no maintenance.

As far as Dynafits go, I started taking them apart after a particularly windy night spent on Adams, after which I could feel the presence of pumice dust as I turned the heels. Some years are better than others, dirt wise, but so far no significant wear on posts or bushings. My question is what other people use for grease - I've been using Pedro's Syngrease (the red stuff) out of my bike kit, which seems to be fine, though I doubt it was intended for sub-freezing use.

In terms of catastrophic failure, the two Internet reports I've seen this year of the metal post breaking off at its base have me thinking it might be a good idea to unscrew the heel and check for cracks around the bottom of the post once in a while.

I pull apart and clean/re-grease my wife's heel pieces at least once a season, after pulling off bindings on her first pair of skis after two years and discovering that they were caked in dirty, clumped grease. As easy as it is to do, I've just made it part of the regular maintenance. The big plastic piece that buts up against the heel-post can get worn down if they're not clean, from reports I've read.

Thanks Greg and Marcus,

I've been wondering about the proper grease too; I just used what I thought was the most suitable of what I had in the shop. I hesitated to use silicone based lube (e.g. Sil-Glyde) because although silicone greases have excellent temperature and water repellent properties, they are not that good as lubricants. Or so I have read. So I used a Teflon loaded lube that is supposed to be "impervious to salt and fresh water", and has a temp range down to -65 deg. Of course I believe that implicitly! To be truthful, the main reason I used it, was that it's not colored and would not stain my ski clothes.

But I'm sure there is a special grease that should be used. You know, 'specially formulated for use with... and just $50 and ounce!"
I guess I did not specifically mention that in addition to taking the main body of the binding off the post, I've been removing the top plate, and then all the removable parts beneath. There has been quite a bit of junk in there too.

Larry

I'll have to check out the guts of the binding myself, next time. I've used white lithium grease to good effect so far, but that's not based on any insider information

Larry,
I mounted my Dynafits for the first time. Not knowing the system at all (never skied them either) I read the manual to get the specs figured out.
They mention to not leave the skis on the top of a car uncovered or dirt from the road grime would enter the system.
Of course they want you to take the binding to an authorized Dynafit dealer for maintenance, but failed to mention greasing the heal piece.
Thanks for the tips I will keep them in mind when I need to service heel once a year.

One thing of humor that I found in the instructions was probably a translation error:
Before storage clean the binding with water of dirt and sand.

I can get that right from the White River when the glacier flour is released into the headwater.
Joe