Video Transcript for Installing the Westin R5 Nerf Bars on a 2024 Ford Explorer

Hi, this is Scott with etrailer and today we're gonna be taking a look at our Westin R5 Running Boards for our 2024 Ford Explorer. Westin makes a wide variety of running boards for vehicles and our Ford Explorer here, it's not really low, it's not really tall, it's kind of in between for an SUV. These running boards really accent the trim level of this one really nice. Running boards like this are gonna be good for good footing for when say you want to get something off the top of your rack here or even just getting in and out, it's gonna give you a little more footing and easier to get in and out of the vehicle. What these boards are gonna do is they're gonna make it a little bit easier to get in and outta your vehicle. It's really nice, gives you a good footing to get in, has a little bit of a textured finish on there.

It just makes it a lot easier to get in and out of the vehicle. Has a really good look. The trim on this one really matches well with it. I noticed when we installed it you could tell how really good the just the stainless look matches with the chrome. And as far as the trim, I really liked how this plasticy color here on the footsteps really match the color of the trim across here.

And the nice thing about it too is your bounce. You're not gonna really see your brackets at all. These little covers cover that up and this kind of adds to the style a little bit. Also notice too is when we we inchesre putting 'em on, we did notice how nice they do line up with our fender wells here with our trim. It just goes along real good.

It lines up real nice and sits real nice and level. Also back here in the back we did notice how nice it lines up here in the back too. We we inchesre kind of surprised on how good it fit. As far as installation goes for these running boards, it's really not super complicated. Once you open up the box and you see everything in there, once you get the hardware bag it may be a little daunting, but once you get everything divvied up and separate out where everything's gonna go, it's not too bad.

If it's something you want to tackle at home, we can show you how to get it put together with all the hardware and get everything all separated out. So stick around and watch a video. To start our installation of our running boards, we are gonna have a few things to start off here and we're gonna have these little clips and these will go in little pocket areas of our underbody there. And what they're gonna do is they're just going to pop in the sheet metal that's gonna go in a square section and then this part's gonna go back into a spot where there's a hole and that's gonna be a place for us to put our bolt. And these little guys here are flange nuts and these are gonna go up in into a pocket behind a piece of our metal flange and our plastic there and we'll show you how that goes in. We have our bracket here and we have this one in already. We have it up finger tight now we have this our bigger bolt and we have our washer and our lock nut on there. And we're just gonna start it up into the location where we have our nut wedged into that space there. And just wanna start it, bring it down as far as you can finger tight. We're gonna come back later and tighten these all up. As far as our passenger side goes, we're just gonna pop our clip in here and we're gonna line it up with the hole here and just wanna get it sitting in there where it's lined up with the hole. And on our passenger side is gonna be different than our driver's side since we're doing this on the passenger side of this one, our nut will go on the forward location here and that's just because our brackets are all the same shape and everything so they'll just be dipped the same for each side, but it's just where the hole lines up different so it'll be flipped. So on the passenger side we're gonna put the nut in the forward location in between this piece of plastic here and this little flange that hangs down, you just kind of want to get that nut in there and the plastic should hold it in there for you and just kind of center it up with your pinky and that'll get it held in place for you. On the driver's side, you're gonna want to use these back rear most holes here. So it's just kind of flip flop, it's just you're using the same brackets so they're the same shape and they're just not really side specific, it's just where the bolt will go that's different on each side. Now we'll just get all our brackets in place here. We've got six of 'em to put up. So we're just gonna start, put the clip ones here first and get that run up and we'll get our bigger bolt in and we're gonna do this to all six of them, driver and passenger side. I'll get all of these on and we'll move on to our next step. We leave all of our mounts loose so we just kind of have them finger tight all down the line here. We will be tightening everything back up. We have our little cover here and that's gonna go onto our bracket and it's basically what it's gonna do it's gonna go on here and it's gonna cover up the space in between our bracket and our running board that comes out here. At this point it does look angled so don't let that bother you. That's kind of like how it's designed to be. And what you're gonna do is you have two holes here on our bracket and we have two holes here that have to line up on our thing. You do have three different holes but we're just gonna use the two and you're just gonna kind of swing it in and get the one lower side, the smaller side of our piece to go over. This can be a little tricky, just stay with it and you'll get it there. These little tabs are gonna be flexible on this cover. It's pretty much just gonna be a decorative thing. It's nothing there for strength. So if you have to kinda wrestle it to get it over your mount, go ahead and do that. Now you just gotta decide how you want to get it to mount on here. So now we have a spot up here on the top where I can get the bolt through and got that one to go through. Okay, now I'll just get your other one through here, just kind of kick it up and it can be tricky to get it to go. There we go. And we have those two on. Now we'll come back with our flat washer and our nyloc nut and we'll just get them started on loosely. Everything on our assembly process so far we are just kind of assembling loose and we'll get everything adjusted and back in shape where we want it to be as soon as we start tightening everything up. So basically just doing a loose assembly process right now. We'll get to on there on that one. It can be a little confusing trying to figure out how to get these little plastic caps figured out. But once you get one side figured out and you get one on each side figured out it'll go along pretty quick for you. Now we have three little plates. Our running boards are side specific. So if you look at the top of it, you can see how your foot pad goes further to the back of the running board there and you have more of your chrome area to the front. So this one will go on the passenger side. Now that we've flipped this over, you can see that we do have these plates. And what these plates are gonna do is they're just gonna go in the slot here and they're gonna turn and they're gonna sit in this little rail like that. And that's gonna allow you to slide it to match up with where your brackets are there. And all we're gonna do is flip that back over and get all three of those in. And then we're gonna set our brackets into place here and line up. You probably will want two sets of hands to do this part 'cause it can be a little tricky to get 'em all lined up without making it pop out. Once you've got 'em all lined up, you can just set it down. Now at this point it's gonna allow you to slide your bracket or your running board where you want it. Up underneath you're gonna have these cross supports. You're gonna wanna have your front one in the front. You're gonna have your middle one back here. You're gonna want the middle bracket just behind that one. And then you're gonna have another support bracket back here. You're gonna want your last one back here to the rear of the vehicle behind that one. What that's gonna do is that's gonna allow you to slide your running board where you want to line it up. So what we're doing with this one today is we are going to line the end up right with this right here. And when we get that one lined up nice and flush with that, that lines us up in the rear also. So we're flush here and it gets us flush in the rear. Now we're just gonna take a flat washer, our split lock washer and a nut and we're just gonna get them threaded up finger tight just to hold it in place. And we're gonna do that on the rear here as well. Flat washer, split lock washer and a nut. Alright, now we're gonna do that to the rest of them on down and then we'll start tightening everything up. Now we'll go ahead and snug everything down. What we'll do is we'll start out with the ones that mount our brackets up to the under body panels there. We'll go ahead and get them snug down and then we'll go on and we will tighten up our board and get that all set where we want it. And that way we're still lined up. And then we'll go back through and we'll snug down our little cap covers here that cover our brackets. And then after all that we'll go back around through and we'll get everything torqued down to spec. Easiest way to do these is go ahead and start with your 16 millimeter here and run that one up and then we're gonna use our extension with our 13 millimeter on it and then we'll run those up to here. (drill grinding) And that's gonna line everything up where we want it and we'll just do that on down the line here. All right, now that we have our brackets all tightened up and just kind of snug for now, we're gonna come back after a while and we're gonna get 'em down to torque. Now we just wanna make sure that our board didn't move anywhere. So we're still lined up in the front and we're lined up in the rear with our fender wells how we want it. Now we're just gonna go ahead and take an extension with our 13 millimeter socket and we're gonna start on our center one and we're just gonna snug it down 'cause what that's gonna do is gonna keep our board from moving back and forth and then we can just go along and snug 'em all down. (drill grinding) Just nice and snug. Don't have to get too tight with them. All right, with our caps here that cover up our brackets, what we're gonna do is we've got those all threaded in there. What you wanna do is just kind of give them a look and maybe push 'em into place how you want 'em, just make sure they're good and straight and they look good to you. Up under there there's gonna be your 10 millimeter bolt and then you have your 10 millimeter lock nut with two washers on it. The easiest way to get at 'em that I've found is a 10 millimeter gear wrench and a 10 millimeter normal wrench and just get in there and just go like that. It's gonna be tied up in there and you don't have a lot of space for a ratchet or anything like that. And so this is the best way that I've found to do it. Now with these, you are tightening it down onto plastic with metal washers, so you just want to get 'em snug. You don't have to crank 'em down really tight 'cause you don't wanna really blow out the plastic. You just kind of want to get 'em good and snug. They're really not a structural thing. They're more of a cosmetic thing so they don't have to be really tight as far as the little covers go. Now with all of our hardware all snugged up, what we're gonna do is we're gonna go around with our torque wrench. You're gonna just tighten 'em up to your manufacturer's specifications and your manual. We we inchesre really impressed with the way these turned out after we got 'em installed. Just the way they look with the vehicle and everything. Now, say you have a different trim level, maybe something that you want to go with a flat black. The Westin does have different styles and different colors that you can choose from. Just go ahead and look at on our website and see what type of different systems they have for you. Other than that, I appreciate you watching the video. This is Scott with etrailer and thanks for watching.