Old Dynafit Crampons on 06-07 Comforts

After seeing Zap's ski crampons for sale and finding out from him that they were intended for older model Dynafit bindings, I started hunting around on the web for a description of the difference between them. Dawson's Wildsnow page states "Note: As of 2006 the crampon slot in the Dynafit toe unit is reinforced, and not backward compatible with earlier Dynafit crampons, though earlier crampons can be easily modified to fit." I couldn't, however, find any information on how that modification might actually be done.

Fast forward over to Zap's house, where it immediately became clear what the trouble was: You couldn't slide them on. One possible interpretation of the problem is that the nose on the front tooth of the crampon prevented the body of the crampon from rotating to align with the slot in the binding (look at the first picture). There are other possible interpretations, methinks, but that's the one we chose to act on. Quick work with a file (see second picture) made the whole thing fit nicely. I chose to take the left nose off of one crampon and the right nose off the other, so I could wind up with a mirror symmetric setup on my feet. I Sharpied and scribed arrows into the crampons to speed assembly in unpleasant conditions. As near as I can tell, they work happily.

This leads me to a couple questions:

Will I suffer from having removed the nose on the first point on one side? (I think not)

On which side of the ski (inside/outside) will prove better for the nose to live on?

Does that little tiny point on the center of the long plastic tongue on the Dynafit toepiece do anything?

Should I add the little underfoot spacers back onto the crampons? (Zap seemed happier without them)


Edit: Zap still has one more pair, if this looks like something you want to try.

...I started hunting around on the web for a description of the difference between them.

Here's Lowell's post on it:
www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboardi...dex.php?topic=5552.0

Nifty! Good to see that a sage master took the same solution the problem. Too bad I didn't read farther down the page I'd linked to. Thanks!