Genuine Steel Nerf Bars

Before heading off-road and damaging your 4-wheel drive’s rocker panels or factory stock side steps, you may want to consider replacing them with some off-road Nerf bars. Or, in our case, we already had some trail damage to our OEM step bars and the cost of fixing it at the dealership or a body shop was about 8 times (8 times!!!) the cost of our aftermarket Nerf bars. And, the new Nerf bars not only added to the value of our truck but enhanced the looks as well.

Note the damage to the front of our existing, flimsy stock side step.

 

This is where Genuine Steel comes in. Our last article on their tail light protectors showed you how easy it was to install their aftermarket products. The same goes for this particular installation as well. Genuine Steel offers aftermarket “bolt-on” accessories for 4-wheel drive and sport utility vehicles of nearly every type. However, they don’t sell directly to the public so be sure to contact your local 4-wheel drive parts supplier and see if there is an application for your rig. Follow along with our simple installation of a set of Nerf bars for our ’93 Toyota 4-Runner.

 

Installation was really a snap and only took about 3 hours to complete. The first step was to remove the factory steps. A few bolts on each side and the cheesy, flimsy, aluminum steps came right off and went straight to the garbage pile. Once thse were off, it was a matter of selecting the correct Nerf bar for each side and marking the locations where you would drill.

You will probably want to borrow, buy or rent a right-angle drill as we went through 3 drill bits trying to drill through the frame at an annoying angle to get this bolted on. However, once the holes are drilled in your frame, you simply run in the self-tapping bolts and tighten. Be sure to check for level before drilling and bolting though. Having a second set of hands helps a lot and makes the installation much easier.

 

 Once you’ve got a few bolts in the front section of the nerf bar, you can use the rest of the supplied fasteners to bolt the rear section on. The rear section bolts directly to and beneath the rear body mount. Personally, I’d prefer to see it bolted to the frame like the front but the bars seemed sturdy enough and made installation much easier. Once each bar is hung, tighten of the remaining bolts and marvel at your finished product.

Genuine Steel

732 Indigo Court Pomona, CA 91767 (800) 541-8488 Fax: 1-909-621-0328 Email: genuinesteeel@performix.com