Video Transcript for Westin Grate Step Nerf Bars Review - Adding Grip and Style

Hi, everyone. Jesse here with etrailer. Today we'll be taking a look at the line of Westin Grate Steps Running Boards If you're looking for a set of running boards, not only to get in and out of your vehicle a little bit easier, but also something that'll help you be able to reach up to your roof, so you have to unload or load stuff up there. This will be a great choice for you. Not only does it come with a nice rugged look, but it also has a lot of traction, whereas with other running boards that are just kind of smooth. Well, if we take a closer look at the running board, you'll immediately notice these raised treads here.

It's gonna give you a lot of grit for getting in and out of the vehicle. This will be a really good option for you if say you live in a colder climate, some snow and ice. The nice thing about this running board is that it doubles as a boot scraper, so that'll be a nice way to get that off of you. Or even if you're just in a muddy environment. Say you're working on the farm with your truck and you want to get some of that off your boots before you get into your nice clean truck.

As for the installation, this kit came with custom fit brackets made especially for the Explorer. So it really made it a simple process. You wanna make sure that you plug in your year, make, model of your vehicle into our fit guide to ensure that you get the right kit for your vehicle. But as I said, those custom fit brackets make it a very simple process. It's just a matter of bolting up those brackets and then attaching the running boards to it.

With all that said, if you have installed these before on your vehicle or any other variety of running boards, you wanna share some photos of what they look like. Please feel free to leave a review or comment, but otherwise, let's get into the installation and I'll walk you through that whole process. When it comes to getting our mounting brackets installed, you'll thirst want to come underneath. We're on the passenger side here, and you'll want to identify your three mounting points. There's gonna be a piece of the pinch wheel that comes down farther and has three holes in it.

So there's one in the front, one in the middle, and one on the back. Starting here on the front one, we'll have to get our nut that has a clip around it installed up into the frame of the vehicle. We'll simply slide this into the square hole here, push it in. Sometimes they'll fight you, so you may want to grab a screwdriver and help you get that pushed in. Try to get that lined up and then we'll just continue that with the other two spots. Now we'll have some serrated flange nuts to kind of slip into place in between this plastic and our pinch weld. On the passenger side, these are gonna go in the front hole. So I'll just peel back that plastic a bit with my screwdriver and then that will hold it in place. But as I said, passenger side, we will do the front hole. On the driver's side, you'll do the same thing, but you'll be using the back holes. We'll take our brackets, they'll be installed in this position because our running boards will be mounted on this part of the bracket. But all we'll do is line it up with those two pieces of hardware we installed. We have a skinnier longer bolt with a flat washer and a split washer that's gonna go in top. We're just gonna loosely install these for now. Just put that threaded on. And then for the flange nut that we slipped into place, that'll get one of the thicker bolts with a washer and a split washer. Before we lift our running board over into place on the vehicle, you'll want to set up your brackets first. So when it comes in, these bolts will be pretty tight. You'll wanna loosen those up, kinda eyeball it, get it adjusted to where you think the mounting brackets are gonna be placed, and then snug it down. Just tighten up so that you can freely move it without them falling off, but you are still able to adjust them by hand. So now with your brackets on there, but still loose, this is the point where you're ready to put your running board on top and get everything adjusted and tightened down. So now really you can just have your running board kinda resting on it as you get everything lined up. I'm gonna start with the middle one, get this slid into place. Drop our bolts down to the slotted holes and then I'll do that same process with the front and the rear. When it comes to adjusting, depending on the length of the vehicle, there's really no measurements in the instructions. It just comes down to personal preference. If you wanted to get it as even as possible, that's fine. You just wanna make sure that you're not gonna make contact with your tires at all. So make sure there's plenty of clearance there. But once you have it adjusted where you want it, we can take one of our locking nuts and washers and start getting those installed to each of those studs. Now before we tighten those nuts down, you'll want to tighten down your threaded bolt that's in there until we see this bottom bracket start to bend. That means it's gonna be locked into place and we don't have to worry about the running boards sliding around. Now we're gonna tighten everything down. I like to start by tightening the mounting bracket just 'cause the angle's gonna move. So if I need to make any minor adjustments with my running boards, I'll tighten those down last. But our side bolts up here, I'm gonna use a 16 millimeter socket and then a 15 millimeter wrench to hold the nut. We'll get that snugged down. (drill grinding) And our top bolt here will be a 13 millimeter. (drill grinding) Once you have those brackets tightened down, I'd just give it a look, make sure everything still looks right. But once you're satisfied, we can tighten down the running boards to the brackets with a 13 millimeter socket. (drill grinding) Now we'll go over everything with a torque wrench and make sure it's torqued down to the specifications in the instructions. And that's gonna do it for our look at the line of Westin Grate Steps Running Boards.