d22 sidesteps removal

gday everyone, im thinking about taking off my sidesteps and if i would have any problems doing so? thanks in advance.

Thats a very open sort of a question........
Problems I might encounter are;
1.Do I have enough time to do this before the missus tells me I'm supposed to be doing something else other than f'ing about with the car again
2. If I open the garage door to go fetch a 12mm socket will 1 dog slip past me and bugger off down the street or will both of them get out and go in separate directions meaning I have to round them both up over the next 20 mins.
3. Will I run into one of my neighbours that needs to chat for the next 1/2hr about what mechanical bastardry they are up to in their shed before I explain why it is that they found me in the driveway with a 12mm socket in hand after spending the last 1'2 hour rounding up dogs and sourcing said 12mm socket..... introduce point 1 at this stage means that yes I run into problems trying to remove or add anything......
Results may vary and ryestylen you may well have a whole different set of problems to mine but just remember that life is not meant to be easy but the rewards come to those that just get in and have a go!

Ummm, I take that as a "yes, do it" Aido?

you have to remover the seats front and back and carpet as the bolts screw down from inside the ute

Aido said:

1.Do I have enough time to do this before the missus tells me I'm supposed to be doing something else other than f'ing about with the car again
2. If I open the garage door to go fetch a 12mm socket will 1 dog slip past me and bugger off down the street or will both of them get out and go in separate directions meaning I have to round them both up over the next 20 mins.

Click to expand...

Oh man, i totally hear ya, my missus hates it when i'm in the shed tinkering.

and the dog got out last weekend when i went across the road, took 40mins to find him.

haha great story Aido thanks sounds like a common predicament for the average Joe. mmm i didnt really wanna take out the seats but i rekon ill have too.

ryestylen said:

haha great story Aido thanks sounds like a common predicament for the average Joe. mmm i didnt really wanna take out the seats but i rekon ill have too.

Click to expand...

Only need to take out the front seats.

3 x 12mm hex bolts on each of the 3 legs.

remove the plastic screws/clips from the opening trims, then seat, fold carpet up and you should be able to remove the bolts from there.

don't forget to bogg up the old holes too. There's about 24 of them.

got the sidesteps off fairly easily didn't have to take out the front seats either just gonna bog or silicon them up now.

how did you take them out without removing the seats? had a look at it tonight after mistakenly thinking it'd be a quick job....

You don't need to take out the whole front seat. I just undid the bolts that are on the door side of each seat and lifted it up to get to the back tricky ones.

Its fairly easy. took me about 25 minutes each side.

sweet, thanks for the tips

Just cut them. Saves having to seal up the holes. Just out a tad of sikaflex around the hole also to have a perfectly tight seal

There not sealed from factory anyway cause the numpties put a 25mm hole for a 8mm bolt then taped over the bottom of the hole and push the bolt through that tape. it is probably the roughfest thing ive ever seen from factory on a new car. cant beleive they do it tbo

I cut mine off.... don't have any holes to seal up that way

i can see the attraction in cutting them off.... might do that....

I took my steps off today and found it so much easier removing the seats, only took a couple of minutes longer.
I also found that I didn't find any butchered holes as some people have found, they were all about 20mm in diameter.
I brought some M8 X 1.25 nuts and found some washers and left the bolts with their internal plates where they were. The plates have a thin rubber seal underneath them and I found that they sealed the hole perfectly.
The washers covered the hole from underneath and job done.

Hmm wonder why mine were so butchered on a new car then. even the edge of the misshaped hole was cut steal no paint. not all of them but the really butchered ones were raw steel

id be removing the whole side step, not cutting them off.
and sealing the holes properly.
when i did my bodylift my carpet was wet underneath, im thinking the water had come in through the sidestep mounts.