My Bearikade is circa a dozen years old and remains a key piece of gear for traveling in canister country. Last couple of years I've had an increasingly hard time operating the Dzus fasteners [example] to the point I was only using one of the three last week. A brass washer is my key.

Today I declared war on the tight fasteners. I began with checking each of the nine possible head-receptacle combinations to try and determine whether the problem was in the rotating head or spring receptacle. The heads seemed to be the prime problem but there's variation with the springs, too. I greased the heads where they extend into the receptacle, and greased the springs too. I bent the springs to increase the openings. This helped some, but still too tight. Further working the heads showed binding on rotation. Lubing underneath the heads (with Triflow) loosened them considerably, which led to a voila moment. With that, the fasteners now open and close with an easy double-click.

There's still variation in resistance among the three spring bases, which leads me to believe they will benefit from alignment but my trial-and-error process isn't giving me a proper solution. I may continue trying and welcome anybody else's experience and pointers.

Cheers,