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T4 Aluminium Side Steps/Running Boards

8K views 11 replies 5 participants last post by  fredddie 
#1 · (Edited)
Hi all,
Here we have some fantastic aluminium side steps/running boards for you T4T:
Superb quality and look stunning, also practicalT:
members price is only £179.99 plus delivery to uk mainlandT:T:
We at vee dub transporters have the best choice of side bars for t4 and t5 with lots of styles and we are adding more and moreT:T:




 
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#2 ·
I know it's been a while since this was posted, but are these aluminium side steps still on offer?

Some absolute toss pot opened their car door on my van n dinked the swage line taking off about an inch of paint off too. GRRRRRRRRRR!

Do you have any photos of a T4 with them on too?

( I don't really want much do I? Lol.) I:

Many thanks G
 
#3 ·
hi mate, yes we still stock these, but i dont have any images of them on a T4 im afraid, we are looking to buy a T4 so that we can showcase our products but as im sure you are aware good ones are few and far between and even scrappers are fetching a fortune:eek:
if you would like to order a set give us a callT:
 
#5 · (Edited)
Just took mine out of the packaging and found the instructions useless really to be honest. Managed to figure it all out though but when I tried to fit the brackets - NO M10 NUTS IN THE PACK - AAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!

So now I've had to pack away again until I can get some nuts - No sarky comments please !!

I'll post a pic if I manage to get them on.

Tony
 
#6 · (Edited)
OK mayk19, this is for you (and some for you Veedubs)

As you said the instructions are pretty useless apart from letting you know which bracket should go where, even this doesn't match up to the actual items I received.

DON'T USE NYLON NUTS FOR THE FITTING IT MAKES IT A LOT HARDER !!

The fixing brackets below are what you need for the middle:



The thinner one must go on the O/S and the oval one on the N/S (I'll get to some issues with these later).

To start sort the brackets, the ones labelled Left are the N/S set.

Start at the O/S front. - I Put mine up on ramps which made life a lot easier. The cross member just behind the front wheel has a large and small hole in it. Feed the double bracket thread first up and through the large hole so that the threads are both pointing downward



Fit the front left bracket finger tight to this fixing



Next comes the only tricky part of the whole process (VEEDUBS -THIS IS FOR YOU TOO)

The middle bracket will only fit in 1 position that I could find. About 18 inches back from the front cross member you will find a rubber grommet covering about 45mm dia covering a hole (not to be mistaken with the slightly smaller one directly under the fuel filler) The middle bracket goes on there using the oval single thread bracket. This is where some slight mods are needed. The bracket is laser cut bracket was a different angle to the underside throwing the bracket upwards and out of line (see below). I used some stainless nuts (all I had) to pack the bracket out and make it level. The other issue is that the bracket keeps pulling out as it is a poor design and needs to be slightly longer. This was a bitch to fit but perseverance got it eventually.



Next came the rear bracket, an absolute doddle. I noticed you said the hole was too small for the bolt - I thought this too at first but found the hole was just covered with a hard layer of underseal. once cleared the 10mm bolt slid in mm perfect.




I'll get to the rest tomorrow as I,m on mobile broadband it's a struggle to upload at the mo.
 
#7 · (Edited)
\next came the fitting of the step itself. This was a piece of cake once the brackets were roughly aligned. Slide the 6 no. 8mm bolts into the guide rail on the underside of the steps. WITH THE SIDE DOOR OPEN gently offer the rail up getting the inner bolts in place into the elongated slots in the the laser cut brackets ( I.use this term as opposed to the threaded fixing brackets)
Once these are in, again hand tighten only. Then slide the step back or forward until you are happy wit the position, Then shut the sliding door and start tightening up with the back bracket set to leave about 5mm between top of step and bottom of door,



Then move to the front bracket and align that. Once done the middle just needs tightening up.
job done on the N/S

Then repeat on the off side.

The only difference is that the middle bracket that I positioned was about 3/5th down the side from the front braket. Again involves removing one of the grommets and this time using the straight single threaded fixing. Again it was too short and proved problematical but was far easier than the N/S

The end result is as shown:



Overall I was pretty impressed with the end result but the following are issues:

The fixing brackets for the middle on both sides are poor and took up 1/2 of the fitting time to tweak.
The Laser cut bracket for the N/S middle is angled incorrectly (if I've fitted it correctly)
The instructions are pretty much useless
A few essentials such as the 10mm nuts were missing from my kit.
The gap between middle and rear brackets on the N/S is too long and this means that the rail flexes when 15 stone of builder (me) steps on it !! (again if I've fitted in right)


ON THE POSITIVE SIDE:
The O/S fits almost to perfection and the fixing gap is just about spot on.
The fitting sounds complicated but actually only took 2 hrs from start to finish.
The steps themselves and the laser cut brackets are really good quality (the threaded ones let them down a wee bit)
They look good when fitted (my opinion)
They stick out just enough to be used as proper steps (rather than side rails) but not too much to look obtrusive.


Overall I am happy with these for a retrofit product but they do need some tweaking and the middle O/S brackets could do with some improvement.

My opinion 7/10 - 9/10 if you get those middle brackets sorted.

Hope these are fair and constructive comments and will help others with the fitting

Tony
 
#9 ·
Hi Simon, that is exactly as I've fitted mine but I don't see any pictures of the middle N/S bracket which is the one that I couldn't get to fit correctly. Do you have any pictures of that one and exactly where it should be fitted and how?

There's every possibility that I've missed the locating point ??

Thanks

Tony
 
#11 · (Edited)
Hi Simon, thanks for the speedy reply.

The rear brackets were fitted as per the instructions and don't cause any problem.

The floor pan on the vehicle are different on the N/S and O/S though. The middle brackets shown on your pics are only for the O/S.

The N/S brackets are completely different as the there is no horizontal plane under the N/S door to fix the same bracket to.

The N/S bracket supplied is designed to hang on the vertical plane, The only place I could get it to fit was 18" back from the front bracket (instructions don't show location)

I have attached the images below for the N/S middle and as you can see they are completely different to the O/S.

I have also shown with the top arrow the issues with the fixing plate pulling through and also the stainless nuts I had to insert to level up.

Hope this helps

Tony

 
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