Video Transcript for Westin Grate Step Nerf Bars for Your 2025 Ford Explorer - Clean, Confident Install

Hi everyone, Jesse here with etrailer. Today we'll be taking a look at, and I'll show you how to install, the Westin Grate Step running boards on our 2025 Ford Explorer. 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 reach up to your roof, say 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. This is going to give you a lot of grip for getting in and out of the vehicle. Other style running boards, they may look a little more factory than this but they're not going to supply you the grip you may need, especially if it's wet out there.

And another nice thing is that since these are punched out of the metal and there are holes, it means if you have dirt or mud on your shoes, it's simply going to fall through, it's not gonna collect on top of it like some of the other styles you may see. As you can see on our Explorer, this is going to cover the entire side of the vehicle, and you also don't have to worry about rubbing on the tires at all. The width of the board is six and a quarter inches, so that's pretty wide, there's going to be plenty of room for you to get your foot on there. However, With the way the Explorer is set up, there's kind of a curve to the body so you won't be able to use the full potential of it, but that doesn't mean that's a bad thing, there's still plenty of room there to get your foot on there and get inside the vehicle. Now, just for a quick measurement of our ground clearance, and I'll preface this by saying this is an ST model so it does sit a little bit lower than your standard Explorer model, but we are at seven inches of ground clearance to the lowest part of our running board here.

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'll want to make sure that you plug in your year, make, and model of your vehicle into our fit guide to ensure 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, and you want to 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 the whole process.

When it comes to getting our mounting brackets installed, you'll first 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 weld that comes down farther and it has three holes in it. So there's one in the front, one in the middle, and one in 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 and push it in. Sometimes they'll fight you so you may want to grab a screwdriver, and help push it in. Try to get it lined up, and then we'll just continue that with the other two spots. Now, I'll have some serrated flange nuts to slip into place in between this plastic and our pinch weld, but on the passenger side these are going to 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'll do the front hole, on the driver's side you'll do the same thing but you'll be using the back holes. Then we'll take care of 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. You'll have a skinnier, longer bolt with a flat washer and a split washer that's gonna go on top. (washer scraping) We're just going to loosely install these for now. Let's get that threaded on. And 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 want to loosen those up. Kinda eyeball it, get it adjusted to where you think the mounting brackets are going to be placed, and then snug it down just tight enough 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. (metal clinking) So now, really, you can just have your running board kinda resting on it as you get everything lined up. Let's start with the middle one, get this slid it into place, drop our bolts down into the slotted holes, and then repeat that same process with the front and the rear. When it comes to adjusting, depending on the length of the vehicle, there's really measurements in the instructions it just comes down to personal preference. If you want to get it as even as possible, that's fine. You just want to 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, you can take one of our locking nuts and washers and start getting those installed to each of those studs. And before we tighten those nuts down, you'll want to tighten down your threaded bolt that's in there. What we're gonna do is take a 5/32 allen wrench until we see this bottom bracket start to bend. That means it's locked into place, and we don't have to worry about the running boards sliding around. Now we're going to tighten everything down, I like to start by tightening the mounting bracket, just because the angle is going to 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 going to use a 16mm socket and then a 15mm wrench to hold the nut. We'll get that snugged down. (drill whirring) And our top bolt here will be a 13mm. (drill whirring) Once you have those brackets tightened down, I 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 13mm socket. (drill whirring) Now we'll go over everything with a torque wrench and make sure it's torqued down to the specifications in the instructions. (metal clinking) (torque wrench beeping) Once we have everything torqued down, that's going to do it for our look at and installation of the Westin Grate Step running boards on our 2025 Ford Explorer.