Video Transcript for Installing the Westin Premier Oval Tube Steps on a 2007 Dodge Ram Pickup

Well, neighbors, it's Brad here at etrailer, and today we're taking a look at installing the Westin Premier six-inch oval tube steps in stainless steel on a 2007 Dodge Ram. Now, if polished stainless steel isn't the look you're going for, you can also get these in black, and they're gonna fit pretty much any submodel that you may have with the Ram. It's just important to make sure you use our fit guide to ensure you're getting the proper installation kit for your truck because this is custom, it's designed to work directly with the Ram, and it makes installation super easy. Our Ram today is a 2500 Cummins, and so just from the factory, the ground clearance is generally pretty high on these. And that's great for a lot of reasons, but sometimes, when it comes down to the driver and passenger of the vehicle, maybe not being as tall or as able-bodied to be able to get in the vehicle can be a downside. And that's the case today.

Our neighbor brought this truck in; he just had back surgery, and he was worried that he would have to fight to get in and out of his truck. So this is gonna help him along that way by being able to step up and have a little bit more room to be able to get up and in place. Being that these are six inches wide, it's nice and a good platform for your foot to rest on to be able to get into the truck. So not only great for the driver and passenger, but a lot of trucks, especially with the quad cabs, if this is your family hauler and those kids have to get a running start to jump in your truck, this is a great way to help them out. This is gonna be extremely sturdy as well.

There's a little bit of give to it, but overall, I'm not worried that this is gonna give out on us. And being that this is stainless steel, it's rustproof. Not only is it gonna be rustproof with the stainless, but the plastic that they use gives it a nice look and a little bit of texture here. So, even if you have muddy or wet feet, you can still step on here. These are a little less aggressive than some of the other ones that are out there that really could be something that you could scrape your boots on.

This is not necessarily the case, but for a nice, clean look, I really like the way that these turned out. And when it comes to installation, this is a pretty easy one to do. You can do this in your driveway or garage. You can probably knock this out in, I'd say, about an hour. There's no drilling required.

It's gonna use factory spots that are there. I think the hardest part is getting it dialed in exactly where you want, and sometimes removing the body bolts that attach into the cab can be a little bit tricky, but if you got a breaker bar, it shouldn't be too hard to do. So, if you are gonna be doing this yourself, follow along; I'll walk you through step by step. The instructions are not that great, feel free to have them with you, especially for torque settings. And there is gonna be extra hardware. Just know that out the gate. So, walk through the video, and it'll show you exactly what to do. But if you decide maybe it's not something that you wanna do on your own, maybe you don't have the time, the place, or even the want to do it, you can use our dealer locator and find someone close to you to get these installed, and that way you can easily get in and out of your truck. Now, to get your boards installed on your truck, it's not particularly hard. Most of the time that you're gonna spend on this is gonna be making sure everything's aligned properly and that you're happy with it. Now, this kit is designed to work with specific brackets for the Ram, but that's not to say that, you know, it's not universal for other fits. So there may be extra hardware and more chances than not, in our case, we had extra hardware. So, the biggest thing I would do is get everything organized. I just have all my hardware in a muffin tin, and that's just gonna keep it a little bit more organized as we go. Lay out your running boards on each side; you're gonna have one that's wrapped in a red foam, that's gonna be the passenger side. And I would suggest doing the passenger side first. That way, you can get it all dialed in; you'll know exactly what to do on the other side. The driver's side is, more times than not, what you're gonna see the most. So, by this point, you'll have it all perfectly dialed in. Now, these are going to attach with custom brackets that go to body mount bolts. So the first thing we're gonna do is attack those body mount bolts. I would suggest maybe not an impact out the gate. These can, over time, become brittle and sometimes break, and then that becomes a whole different animal. So I'm gonna be using a breaker bar with a 3/4-inch socket to get these loose, and that way, we know for sure that they're gonna be coming out. We're just gonna be attacking two of the three visible mounts on the side. The first one in the rear is kind of in front of where the leaf springs attach, and it's gonna be this bolt with a big washer. The other one is gonna be the most forward side. Right before the front suspension, this middle one, we're gonna just leave. So with my breaker bar and my 3/4-inch socket, I'll get this loosened up. Now, from the factory, these have thread locker on 'em. So if you start to get movement and then it kind of binds up and makes some noises, don't be surprised. That's just that thread locker getting knocked loose. (breaker bar rattles) Now, once you get it loose by a breaker bar or by hand and you know that it's at least rotating, at that point, you could probably take an impact to it to save yourself quite a bit of wrenching. It's a long bolt. So we'll get this taken down. (drill whirring) Now, we are not gonna be reusing these, so you can do whatever you want with them, but as we put up our brackets, we will not be using these. We're gonna use the new hardware. Now we're gonna grab our brackets, and we're gonna be using the new hardware to attach this top gusseted portion to where we removed that body mount. And it's important to get them set up in the proper way. So the longer one, you can see that it's at a slight angle here, that is going to go in the back. And you want this portion where eventually the side step is gonna rest facing towards the front of the truck. So we'll get this set up back here, and then our front one will go in this forward body mount. And same thing, we're gonna have this going in the middle. So, just get that set up properly. You can lay these out for both sides because you're gonna be mirroring the same thing that you do on one side to the other. So it might be worthwhile, as you do one side, to lay out the hardware for the other side. Now we're gonna grab our new long bolts. We have a split washer and a flat washer towards the head of it, and we're gonna pass this up. And then we have this large washer that we're gonna put in place. Now I'm just gonna raise this up, just hand thread it in. It should go in fairly easily. You don't have to snug this down. And pretty much all of our hardware is gonna stay loose for the entirety until we go to torque everything down at once. That's gonna allow us the adjustability to really get these dialed in exactly where we want. I'm gonna snug it up just a little bit, so it's gonna hold itself in an upright position, but again, you don't have to get crazy here. Our new hardware is gonna be a 19-millimeter socket. So, if you want to use that to get this snugged up, by all means, go ahead. (drill whirring) Directly across from where our brackets are mounted to those body mounts, we're gonna be putting this hardware. We have a stud and this plate, and this is gonna become a mounting point for our secondary bracket. So once you put it in there, just take the plastic washer that's included and thread that on there. That's gonna keep this in place. You can just slide that on, and we'll be doing the same thing on the front as well. Now, you may or may not have rubber grommets that are, you know, covering those up. If that's the case, you can just pry those out. (stud rattles) Now we're gonna grab our brackets. Now, with these, these are gonna be two separate sizes, so one's obviously shorter than the other, and the plate is gonna be a little bit smaller. So grab the smaller portion, and we're gonna feed this hole onto that stud that we just put. And we're gonna put a flat washer, split washer, and then a nut. And again, we're gonna just leave this hand tight for now. We'll just thread that on. With our bracket in place, on the rear side, the bracket should be towards the front, and this is gonna bolt up through these holes. And so the hardware we're gonna use is going to be our bolt that looks like this with a flat washer. And then as we feed this through on the backside where we put the nut, we're gonna be putting a flat washer, a split washer, and then the nut. (nut rattles) On our front bracket, it's gonna be exactly the same. Just make sure you have this bracket on the front side of it, and we're gonna get this started by hand as well. (nut rattles) Now, if you're following the instructions along with this video, you're gonna see that they have the end cap coming off and there's T slots. That's not the case here. The way that this is gonna get bolted up is going to be these adapters. They have the welded-in studs. And eventually, this is gonna go into this channel and drop into our bracket. But we also have these plates that are gonna go in place, and these are gonna sit right on top here. You'll see that there's this foam portion, that's gonna go towards the outside. So, just have that in place or ready to put in place as we raise this in. And for your bracket, if you just navigate this portion to where it kind of goes into that channel, it may move around on you, but if you put the studs in first, rotate it, and then pull the studs out, you'll see pretty quickly that this is how it's supposed to sit. So we'll get those in place on the front and back. And then, as we put this in place, just make sure those studs go through the front and the back. So, it might actually be easier to do one side at a time. And when putting these in place, we have the screw on the backside for the cap, that should face towards the middle of the vehicle to where it's not accessible, or visible, I should say. So we'll pass this through. (metal clinking) And you can rest the step on the front if you need to. But I'll guide this in. (metal rattles) And I'm gonna get some hardware started, so this'll hold it in place. So we're gonna grab our small flat washers and nylon lock nuts. And if you just get a few of these started on each side, this'll hold it in place. That'll make getting the rest of the hardware in a lot easier. (nuts rattling) So we have everything loosely in place, and this is roughly what it's gonna look like. But there is adjustability, and this is always the time that it takes the longest for me because I really want it perfect. And so there's a little bit of wiggle room across the board where we put those bolts into the body mounts, that is slotted. So it really comes down to how close do you want it to the truck versus how far out. And that's gonna be the first thing that we start to snug down and the rest will kind of follow suit. Because we also have a bracket here that, if we we inchesre to raise this up, it can move with it. So again, really getting it exactly where you want, you know, hold it in, and then you can start snugging things down. But I would start with the body bolt first and figure out if you want it all the way out, all the way in. So, snugging this down. Again, we'll take our 19-millimeter socket. And I'm not gonna go completely crazy here; I just want it to be holding in place, but this will help draw it up. We'll come back later with the torque wrench. (drill whirring) Now, it may wanna twist side to side; try to keep it as straight in line as possible. So before I get it too tight, I'll just bump this in place. (metal scraping) And I'm pretty happy with that, so I'll go and snug up the front. Now, as I tighten it down, this slot also allows for a little bit of drawing it up or back. So I'm gonna push this all the way back, and that's gonna put this as low as I can. So that's why it's important get it snug to where you can still move it around, have just a little bit of it loose so you can really get that adjustability. And this is gonna be a 9/16-socket and a wrench on here. We'll snug this down. Again, no need to get crazy here; we just wanna make sure that it's snug in place. Now, all that's left to really snug down is going to be our nylon lock nuts that we have on the bottom. And this is where you can adjust it side to side. I recommend finding the spot that you're happy with it. So, you know, pretend like you're hopping in the vehicle and where you'd step, and more times than not, you're using the backside of the door to hop in. So, I like to align this up where it makes sense, it looks clean, but finding a good reference point is definitely helpful to make sure that it's even on both sides. And so what I did here, when I mounted the other side, if you just follow this door crease down, it points right where the plastic cap meets the metal on the sidestep. So that's gonna be my reference to make sure that it's in a good spot and it'll be cohesive between both sides. So again, I'm gonna also make sure that I have this drawn out as far as possible for our neighbor, but you can get a little bit of wiggle room in, so kind of up to you. So we'll go through and snug these down. Again, not very tight. The torque setting on these is really low. So, really just snug it to where it's not gonna be completely loose, and it's gonna be a 10-millimeter socket to accomplish that. So with the snug down, this is what it's gonna look like. And again, it's definitely worth, you know, hopping on while you have all your tools out and figuring out if it's exactly where you want. Once you are happy with it, now it's time to torque everything down. All the torque settings are found in the instruction manual, so change your torque wrench accordingly as you go through them. And we're gonna do the same process of doing the body bolts first, going to our bracket bolts, and then finally where our steps attach. Now I mentioned you're gonna have a bunch of extra hardware; you can see what I have left over. So if you have all this, don't worry; you didn't do anything wrong; it's just for that universal fit. But at this point, we have it fully installed. If you haven't done it on both sides already, just do the exact same thing on the other side, and then you'll be ready to go. And that was a look at the Westin Premier six-inch oval polished stainless steel tube steps on a 2007 Dodge Ram.