Factory side steps loose

[William Hastings]

Anyone else have factory side steps and notice they wiggle a bit when stepping on them? I thought i bent or broke a bracket. Turns out every bolt (6) on each bracket were loose. Only have 2200 miles on it. Im 235 so not too heavy on them

 

[DRkNESS]

It was the same on my last Ram. I put Loctite on them and never worried about it again.

 

[HDHNTER]

Had the same happen on my last Ram, unfortunately it wasn't a case of nuts backing off, the rivets had pulled through the sheetmetal. The passenger side step had loosened up several times over the years & I would tighten the mounting nuts up each time.... eventually the rivets ripped through completely, all of them. It was a royal PITA to fix requiring steel plates to be welded in to fix. Have a look at the sheetmetal where the mounting brackets attach & look for metal stretch.

 

[Kinetic]

I applied blue loctite on mine as well when i installed them, solid as a rock.

 

[William Hastings]

Thanks for the heads up. No stretching i can see right now. I will use loctite on them and hopefully that'll be it.

 

[Nick_rp]

rust had eaten my front bracket on the driver side. i avoided using it till i found time to remove it but it fell off on its own in a parking lot. used a tie down strap to hold it up till i got home. there was 1 bolt mounting the step to the bracket on the rear but the welded nut on the inside of the step had broken its weld. had to grind it off.

on the bright side got more ground clearance for free

 

[Firebird]

If those rivnuts aren't tight in the rocker, you will get movement

 

[William Hastings]

I posted about my factory steps coming loose to the point i almost lost a few bolts last week. New question, im seeing alot of pics here were it appears to me peoples steps have 3 brackets per side. I have 2. The riv nuts are there for a middle bracket, but its not there. Should it be 2 or 3?

 

[Hogs150]

I have 2 on my crew cab full length boards. They're factory boards and the boards them selfs don't have holes for a third bracket

 

[stimpy433]

Somewhere thru the years they changed from the 3 bracket to the 2 bracket design.

 

[William Hastings]

I was looking at shadowhawks pics, i think its a 2017, unless im goin blind they look like factory steps and have 3 brackets.