Militaria Collectibles Original Period Items

Mounting Bars

Mounting Bars

Westin Oval Step Bar Installation

Check out the install video, or scroll down for images

The Products
Westin's line of truck accessories is second to none. The Bull Bar is a very popular product and with its killer style, it's no wonder. The grille and brush guards are great-looking, accentuating the complicated lines of today's modern pickups. For cargo management, Westin has a line of Bed Extenders that will make you wish you had something to haul. Every Westin product is constructed of high-quality materials and is vehicle specific.

Warranty
Westin carries a Lifetime Warranty on any of its Chrome Plated Stainless(CPS) products and a 5-year warranty on most other products. And that's saying something.

Westin is willing to put a Lifetime warranty on a product that sits a mere six inches off of the ground. Dirt, rocks, mud, and road salt are all major truck accessory killers - but not for Westin, who believes so strongly in its products that it offers this crazy warranty. That's a company that Stylin' Trucks can stand behind - and you should too.

Installation
The installation of Westin's Oval Tube Steps (and any of Westin's products) is as simple as can be. Just like most of Westin's products, this item is completely bolt-on and requires no drilling. Instructions are included in the box and are also available for download directly from Stylin' Trucks' site.

Note: This is the author's step-by-step process for installing Westin tube steps, nerf bars, and step bars. They are not a substitute for the manufacturer's instructions, which should be followed to a "T".

Open the Box
First, remove the tube steps and all contents from the box. You should have individually-wrapped brackets, your nerf bars (or tube steps), instructions and any installation hardware.

Next, look at the instructions. Ok, done. Now we can get down to the nitty-gritty. The underside of your truck or SUV already has mounting holes for accessories like step bars, nerf bars, running boards and all sorts of stuff. Westin uses these mounting holes to mount your tube steps.

Attach the Brackets
Basically, remove the factory bolts (if any) and use the new bolts from Westin to bolt on your mounting brackets. Leave these brackets loose on the truck so you have some wiggle room when lining up your tube steps.

Next, bring your tube steps over and line them up on top of the brackets. In order for the steps to be uniform on each side, we lined up the front edge of the tube steps with the seam where the door and fender connect. Yes, you can get out the old ruler and measure down to the millimeter, but nobody will notice or care.

Bolt 'em Up
Now it's time to attach the step bars to the mounting brackets. The underside of the tube steps has a channel in it, a special bracket fits into this channel and attaches to the mounting brackets already on the truck. Then, just tighten up the bolts on the truck and you are done. It really is that easy.

Check below for step-by-step pictures.

Our donor truck is a brand-spankin'-new Toyota Tundra 5.7L.  This thing is beautiful, with a huge cabin, leather seats, in-dash navigation...forget about it!  Too much to list! 

Our poor Toyota Tundra was missing something.  Could it be Westin Oval Tube Steps?

This is the underside of the Toyota's body.  Just underneath the side of the truck there are a series of mounting holes.  In our Tundra's case, these mounting holes had bolts in them.  The mounting holes on your truck or SUV may be empty. 

Now we attach Westin's mounting brackets to the holes in the underside of the truck.  We are using the bolts that were supplied by Westin.   

Tighten the bolts down to attach the brackets.  Leave them slightly loose so you can align your step bar before tightening everything down.

Here are the mounting brackets all lined up and shiny looking.  You'll also notice that we have the truck up on a hydralic lift for the installation of these tube steps.  Westin makes the installation so simple, you could (and many people do) install these while lying in your driveway.

Now we can see the channel on the underside of the tube steps.  Those four bolts sticking down are part of the bracket that fits into this channel.  Obviously, these four bolts also stick down into the mounting brackets that we just bolted to the body of our donor Tundra.

Using Westin's supplied hardware, we tighten down these brackets, securing the tube step to the black mounting brackets.

A couple of strong twists on the ratchet make light work of these nuts.

Now you just need to tighten down the brackets on the body of your truck.  Of course, the instructions give a specific ft-lb to tighten the bolts down to, but we just went with the ol' grip it and rip it approach.

The finished product looks killer on this truck.

Here's one more shot of the truck, just to make you jealous.

About the Author

http://www.stylintrucks.com/sn.aspx?category|category_root|-25=Exterior

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Could you mount the older bumper assembly (front/rear) with the double bars (65-67) on a 69 vw bug?

I wanted to use the old style bumper on my 69 but I noticed in catalogs, this type of bumper is for 65-67. Hopefully the bumpers are compatible like the fenders.

As far as i know they should be, but if not, you can buy the euro blade style.Here are 2 links, 1 for the forum chat concerning what you are doing, and 2 the bumper brackets to do it:

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=375648&highlight=early+fenders

http://www2.cip1.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=C13-15-2045

Good luck!

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