Westin Grate Step Nerf Bars with Custom Install Kit - 6-1/4" Wide - Black Powder Coated Steel

Video Transcript for Westin Grate Step Nerf Bars Installation - 2023 Toyota Tacoma

How's it going, neighbors This is Ed here with etrailer.com, and we're taking a look at the Westin Grate Step Running Boards on our 2023 Toyota Tacoma. Overall, it feels really good. Out of all the running boards that I've looked at today, I would say that this has the best powder coat and the most aggressive design. The teeth on each one of the treads, they're actually cut in pretty deeply to get a nice bite on ice, snow, mud, whatever you may need, or even in wet, slippery, slick conditions, it can really bite onto the bottom of your shoe. The material is steel, so it's gonna be really strong. I really wouldn't be overly concerned with corrosion just based on the thickness of this powder coat.

I've had others that kind of fell apart just taking out the box, you'd see deep scratches. On this, you kind of have a little dust, but no scratches to the actual powder coat, so that's really good. As far as the weight on this guy, you can see that it'll support the entire weight of the truck. And I'm more than confident as far as hopping in and standing on it, you know. So really sturdy, really solid.

As far as the grip on there, you can see it's really grabbing the bottom of my shoe. So the actual tread surface is right at six inches. If you go with the overall width, it's about 6 1/4 inch as far as the width. The space that you're gonna have right here between the body can cause issues as far as having, not having protection as far as debris, mud and whatnot to the little under part of your rocker panel here. Whereas some models actually come a little bit more flush and they have a seal in between.

Your trade off on that is definitely gonna be a nice aggressive tread plate, and really solid ground clearance. It puts you right at 15 inches from the ground. So that's gonna give you, you know, plenty of room to kind of get that additional step hopping into your pickup here. So I mean, in general, really solid step, really good dimensions as far as being in relation to the vehicle, and the style of it is really aggressive and I think it looks great on the Tacoma. So I think that's solid.

For your installation, you're gonna need a 13 millimeter socket and a four millimeter Allen key. And essentially what you're gonna have, you're gonna have two rear center brackets. Those are gonna be identical. And then your front bracket is gonna be different. And now, they're stamped where you have here PF for passenger front, where this one is PR, for passenger rear, even though the PR will work in the center as well. So those two are different, and they're gonna fasten underneath the 13 millimeter bolt. That's going to include a lock washer and a flat washer and you're gonna fasten that into place underneath on the rocker panel. Looking at the bottom of our running board here, you have the threaded point here that you're gonna use your four millimeter Allen key to loosen, to slide the position for your brackets, and finally fastening using a nut, a flat washer, and lock washer. But the first step to this is gonna be installing the brackets underneath. So now that we took a look at our parts, let's go ahead and slide under the truck. Take your flathead screwdriver to remove the plugs that you have. They're threaded in about a turn and a half to remove it and then they just pop out. You can just hand remove 'em. And this is gonna be the position for your front bracket. So you're gonna line up the two holes with the holes on the vehicle. I just get a bolt started with my hand, kind of gimme a little bit more stability. All right, and we're just gonna leave it hand tight as we install all three of the brackets, 'cause that gives us the adjustability to line everything up when we put the step on. So I'm gonna get the middle and rear. Our brackets are hand tightened, and we're gonna loosen up the bracket adapters using our four millimeter Allen key. You can use a Allen wrench or a socket adapter like I am. Just loosen these guys so they can move freely, these two set screws. We're gonna loosen them up so we can move them freely to align them with the holes on the tops of our brackets. And with our set screws loose and brackets sliding freely, I'm gonna kind of estimate where they should be, and then we're gonna see if we can get it right the first time. All right, so let's go underneath, get everything lined up. You know, it's kind of resting on there, so you wanna be careful to not drop it on your face. When that happens, you can just slide it in at an angle and get it to fall right into the track. You are gonna put the bracket adapter without the threads on top, and then adapter with the set screw. I'm gonna do the same here towards the front. So we are still not attached, but we're keeping the bracket in position with the set screws so it doesn't shift when we go to the next step of tightening down the nuts and bolts. After tightening the final bracket's set screw, I'm gonna switch back over to my socket wrench. And now we're gonna put our fasteners over the set screw. We're gonna stack it together in the order of washer, lock washer, nut. And try our best to not drop it on Sam's camera. All right. So I get the nut started. We can. There we go. Get that started and we'll fasten it all down using the socket wrench. All right. (tool beeping) After reaching 18 pounds, foot pounds of torque for your brackets in all three spaces, all six bolts, then you're done with your installation. Everything is locked down and tight. This has been a look at the Westin Grate Step at etrailer.com on our 2023 Toyota Tacoma. Have a great day.