Carr LD Custom Fit Side Steps - Black Powder Coated Aluminum - 14" Step - 1 Pair

Video Transcript for Carr LD Side Steps Installation - 2009 Dodge Ram Pickup

Speaker 1: Today on this 2009 Dodge Ram 1500, we'll be having a look at and installing the Carr LD Custom Fit Side Steps, part number CARR119771. Here's what our steps look like installed. These steps are a great addition to your vehicle to help you safely and easily get in and out of it. The textured pattern on the step will help give us traction even if we have mud or snow on our shoes. This will help clean them off and make it easier for us to get in and out without the danger of slipping. The whole step features a black powder coat finish which will help resist chipping, scratching, peeling, and fading over the course of time.Now we'll get a few measurements of a step.

The step surface at its widest point is 14" wide and is about 4" deep. From the bottom of our rocker panel we get a drop of about 5". This will give us the entry into our truck about 5" lower than where the door is, giving us the added step that we need to get in. It attaches easily to our rocker panel with provided hardware. Now, in this particular Ram with factory suspension and factory size tires we have a ground clearance of about 8".

Now keep in mind the ground clearance will vary from truck to truck depending on your options, how much weight you have in it, what size tires you have, and the list goes on.Now these steps have a weight capacity of up to 500 pounds. As you can see, it's very sturdy and isn't flexing as I jump and down on it a little bit. The whole truck is moving, not the step. What's great about these steps is you can mount them virtually anywhere along your rocker panel to suit your personal needs and preferences. You can even get a second set and put them underneath your back doors.

Now that we've gone over some features of our steps we'll show you how to get them installed.To get ourselves started we'll take our step and two of our brackets. We're going to loosely assemble these so we can use it to get some measurements. You may need a hammer to help tap it in place. Take a long bolt, loosely thread on a nut, get our second bolt in too. Do the same to the other side.

Now that we have these installed we're safe to take some measurements. We're gonna measure the center between our two holes here. Our holes are in a perfect alignment with each other so as long as we do one side we'll get the other side as well.Now in our case we're at 13-1/2". Your case may vary. We've already went ahead and found where the front of our driver seat ends on the driver side, made a mark, and we measured from that point to the end of our mudflap. We had right at 19". We transferred 19" from the mudflap to this part here and got the same measurement on the passenger side. Now we use that as the center and then we measured out 13-1/2". What we're looking for is to have our step centered over the end of our driver seat and matching it up on our passenger side. That way our steps are in the exact same position on both sides of the vehicle.Now we transferred the marks on the outside to the inside with a paint marker so we can match up. Now we can see we're going to have an issue right here because we have a bump that comes out in our weld seam. We need to have our bracket sitting flat against the weld seam. What we're going to do is just move it back until it's touching it just like that, so we can ensure that our bracket will sit flush against the weld seam. We're close enough to our center mark that it won't matter. We'll hold it in place and we'll mark our hole. Now we can take our brackets off the step. We'll hold them up. You can see how it's going to attach. We'll have a self-tapping screw through here. On the bottom side we'll drill out a hole and run a bolt and a nut through.Now we use a center punch, go through the center of where we made our mark. We'll drill a pilot hole through that. We'll do the same for the other bracket. Now we'll hold our bracket up, use our self-tapping screw, and secure it into place on the top location. Securing it, we're making sure it sits flush up against our rocker panel and weld seam. Make sure our step goes in and out smoothly, which it does. We'll now use an appropriate size drill bit and go through the bottom hole and drill it out. Now this is easier if you can do a small drill bit and work your way up. However, on this particular truck this weld seam is curved and it's very, very difficult in order to get a drill bit go straight through it. So if you use one that's tight up against the hole, it'll take a little bit longer but it won't wobble on you.Now we'll take one of our short bolts and one of our larger washers, go through the outside of the rocker panel and go in. Now on the inside we'll place on another large washer and then a nylon lock nut. We use a 1/2" wrench and a 1/2" socket and we'll tighten up the hardware. We'll do the same for our other bracket now.Now that both of our brackets are in place and securely fastened to the vehicle, we can take our step and slide it back into position. We may need to persuade it a little bit with a hammer. Now when we install our bolts, we'll make sure we have one of our smaller washers on each side of it. You want to put a nylon lock nut on it. We'll just get one started on each side for right now. Now that we have one in place on each bracket, we can get our second one in place.Now you'll notice I'm putting the bolts in from the outside working the way to the inside of the step. Now that we have all of our hardware in place, we can tighten down the bolts and the nuts that secure our steps to the bracket. We'll use a 7/16 socket and wrench for this. Now that we have our passenger side step in place, we'll repeat the exact same process for the driver side. That completes our look at and installation of the CARR LD Custom Fit Side Steps, part number CARR119771, on this 2009 Dodge Ram 1500.