UKC

The orange lacing loops on my TX4 have just snapped, has anyone had much luck replacing these? They seems to be threaded around the heel quite tightly but other than that look replacable.

The shoes are getting on a bit but the uppers are still in good condition.and would take a resole I think.

...mine are on the way out (wrapped the worst affected sections in electrical tape last week) so I'm interested in any responses.  I am currently planning to rethread them with a needle and some 3-4mm ish dyneema guyline cord when they snap.

I'm hoping to do similar but where the orange cord passes around the heel it's a very tight fit with very little movement.

If i wet the leather and force some flexible tube through it might widen the opening? I'll report back if I can find something suitable to try it with.

I wasn't going to buy a second pair but just bagged some for £75 this morning, so will experiment with my old pair.

Edit: they've literally just snapped, I've pulled the orange cord through the heel section and the cord that was inside the sleeve is covered in a very sticky residue. Getting something back through there may prove tricky (it's diameter is approx 1.9mm)

It can be re-threaded, I threaded some 1mm steel rod (tig welding rod) through the sleeve. Once through bent the end around a doubled over section of 2mm cord and then pulled it though the the sleeve. I've got pictures if you want them. 

Next up sussing how the cord is threaed around the toe.

yeah pictures would be well handy, thanks

I can see Sportiva have used one piece of cord, and then joined it at the heel with that black rubbery section (to allow you to clip the shoes onto your harness), so you'll need to join the cord there I think

I like my TX4s GTX Mid, but that stringy thingy bit is plain stupid 

My first pair wore through to the midsole, and the uppers finally gave up. The stringy bit looked as good as new.

Second pair are down to flat rubber sole, and stringy bit looks as good as new.

Except that the ends of the orange cord are stitched in at the toe in I think. Shouldn't be a huge problem but it's inconvenient tbh.

I wonder if the determining factor is slight variations in the cord length or fitting at the factory. Mine has snapped at the last lacing eye (furthest from the toe).

I recently posted a similar problem where the laces snapped on my La Sportiva TX5 low shoes. I had a nightmare trying to re-lace them around the heel and ended up snapping another lace. So after loads of research and trying different methods I finally found something that worked and I eventually re-laced them without any trouble in less than a minute. SO what you need is one of these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B007SRYTNC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o...

This is a cobblers leather lacing tool. It worked fine on synthetic laces and easily went through the leather tunnels around the heel of the shoe. 

Hope you get oen and find it as useful as I did!

Thanks, I managed to do it with a length of steel wire and pull it through (10mins of fiddling), but this would have been much easier.

For future reference I managed to get them sorted...

1) remove laces 

2) cut the orange cord at the 'toe' end of the sleeve on both sides and pull it through towards the heel. This may require some force.

3) Cut the orange cord as close to the stitching as possible (near the toes).

4) Thread the new cord, I had to slightly melt / harden the first 30mm of the new cord so I could thread it, you can use a lighter to do this or maybe impregnated the cord with superglue, I just carfully heated with with a jet lighter. I actually threaded 2 lengths jointed with a double fisherman knot at the toe, this should hopefully keep the cord loops even when in use.

5) Thread the new cord through each hole.

6) Feed the steel wire/rod through the sleeve (in at the heel end and out at the toe end), this was the trickiest bit and required a little patience. 

7) Using a pair of needle nose pliers bend a small section of the steel wire over a bite of the cord and pull it through the sleeve. (Force was required but it worked eventually)

8) Repeat for the other side of the shoe.

9) Another tricky part... Adjusting the knot at the heel so that the cord is tensioned correctly for the lace eyelets. I did this by re-lacing the shoes and continuously adjusting the cord until it tensioned correctly. I then tied the cord off behinh the heel with a reef/square knot and a double fishermans to tidy up the loose ends. This took a few attempts to get right.

But they're now repaired for all of £5 and should take a resole as the uppers are in great condition.