Running boards loose August 22, 2016, 07:30:11 pm Hi Group. Larry Wade is a proponent of tightening the frame mounting bolts. Recently someone had a step that was loose, so Larry mentioned tightening them. I did, they were loose, and are much better now. I had problems with the seam at the back of the running boards opening up. I had resealed the drivers side a few times. There are two 1/4-20 carriage bolts at the aft end of each running board that were loose. The drivers side were the worst, and the nuts had rusted, so the heads of the bolts just turned. I ground off the nuts, without getting the bolts too hot. (I didn't want to catch the wood or fiberglass on fire.) I drilled out the holes to 5/16", put a painted steel cap plate above, and a piece of painted, galvanized steel angle underneath. I used stainless 3- 1/2" bolts, lock washers and nuts. Nickel anti-seize on the threads. On the passenger side I got one bolt to tighten, and got the nut off of the other. That one I just drilled out to 5/16". Put heavy duty fender washers above and below and tightened the stainless bolt. After re-caulking with paintable acrylic latex, and touching up with factory spray paint. it looks like new. It should hold my weight better. I masked the heads off and sprayed rubberized undercoating up in the previously coated recesses where the tops of the bolts were located. The masking was so that I could tighten these bolts in the future. You would need to put a wrench on the heads to prevent them from turning. In retrospect, It might have been easier to just go up to 5/16" carriage bolts, but I always like to do things the hard way. The factory used galvanized, but cut off bolts and were rusted beyond tightening. They looked as if they were ground off (along with galvanizing), to rust out slowly.My rig is 17 years old now, but I'm interested to see if anybody else has had this problem. RonB (Sorry I didn't take any pictures)
Re: Running boards loose Reply #1 – August 22, 2016, 09:11:25 pm Ron! That is a great fix- as they say, anything worth doing is worth over-doing! Mine is a '92. No sign of loosening, and I look for it.
Topic: Running boards loose (Read 135 times)
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Topic: Running boards loose (Read 135 times)
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