In preparation for an off-roading trip I decided to reinforce the stock running boards a bit.

No, I do not think these are a replacement for actual rock sliders, and Yes, they are still just bolted to the body. The idea is to spread the load for incidental contact (with the word "incidental" being the important part), I do not ever plan to land on them intentionally, but every now and then,,, things don't go as planned.

Anyway, the stock running boards are only held on to the rocker with two M6 bolts per mounting bracket (even though the bracket has four holes), so I drilled out a bolt hole location at all four holes on each of the five mounting brackets for an M10 rivnut (so a total of 20 bolts per running board).



Cut some 3/16 plate to match the shape of the bottom of the running board.


After grinding the bottom of the mounting brackets to get some bare steel for welding , I painted everything with a coat of this because it has enough actual metal in it to weld through.


Placed the 3/16 on the bottom of the running board and filled up the gap with weld (basically a long plug or rosette style weld) attaching the plate to all five of the running board brackets.


Ground the welds flat


Coated the bottom side with regular ole black spray paint.


After a few days of off-roading I did run out of talent and misjudged a couple things, so some incidental contact did occur.

Paint scrapped off (no big deal) and a little gouging (the 3/16 is just some cheap mild steel). But the rocker panels and running boards themselves are completely undamaged.




Again, these are not a substitute for actual rock sliders if you're looking to do hard-core stuff, but for the occasional off-road mishap or "oopsie" to limit some of the damage, this seems to be better than nothing.
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Looks good to me, beats mangling the originals.

 

Did you mangle the originals off roading, or did they come pre-mangled from the previous owner?

While I have no "proof" that the extra bolts or 3/16 steel welded to the bottom did or didn't help, I'm guessing it helped at least some.
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I may have done it myself...

 

I'm thinking that some of the scratches on mine may have came a few moments after this picture was taken .This was the blue trail "test track" at the offroad park ( basically manmade obstacles to simulate the conditions of each of the different rated trails there). Its also possible (even probable) that I scrapped them on the actual trails at some point too as we spend two days there wheeling blue and green rated trails (I stayed off the black rated trails)


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I installed 20 bolts per running board 25 years ago, when I "upgraded" to Excursion lighted running boards on my crew cab truck.

In the process of seeking Excursion running boards, I ended up with three different sets, that each came with hardware, but I still ordered new hardware from Ford.

What I found, with both the new and the used hardware, is that OEM bolts were all M8, not "M6".

There was a design change in the running bolt heads (one style head had a swiveling wide flange washer, another style had did not, but had taller wrench flats).

FTE Member @Big Horn 2 reinforced all of his L shaped running board brackets to prevent them from spreading open more than 100 degrees.

 

Perhaps the bolts (and little body clips) had been changed at some point before I got the Excursion, but they were most definitely M6 bolts holding my running boards on to the rockers (and only two bolts per bracket) when I got it. Bolts "looked" factory, meaning they had the washer kind of build on and a rounded tip, but they could be whatever bolts some random body shop had laying around a decade before i bought the truck.

Might also be a 2005 year model thing,,, seems as though the 2005's were made with whatever Ford had left over / laying around.
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You people and your rust free undercarriages. Sheesh.

 

You have the PERFECT candidate for an off-road Excursion (assuming you still have it and the insurance company didn't take it away).

I mean yeah it sucks a tree fell on yours,,, but the whole lemons and lemonade thing,,, cut the roof off, add a roll cage, weld the diffs (or get actual lockers) and BAM,,, ultimate offroad people hauler.

And if you don't want to do that to your poor baby that died an unjustified early death at the hands of cruel mother nature,,,wanna sell it to me?
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I actually found a rear window for it and will be getting that relatively soon. Plan is to get the Old Boy back on the road this summer under a salvage title. I just can't bring myself to cut the top or sell at this point, rust be damned. It's just too dang much fun to drive and the Jeep needs some love in the gearing/tires/LS swap department so I'll have to have the X to drive while the Jeep is down.

 

Looks good, I'm guessing you've taken off the front anti-sway bar? That's the only way I could get so much flex out front.

 

The front sway bar was disconnected in that pic,,, but I didn't exactly do that on purpose, a nice rock disconnected the sway bar for me by breaking the driver side end link the day before (picture was taken at the beginning of day #2 of wheeling, end link got broken at some point during day #1)

I've since replaced the sway bar end links but I think the next time I go off-roading with the EX, I'm just gonna take the sway bars off beforehand. Truck drove "okay" on the 500 mile drive back home with no front sway bar although I wouldn't recommend just leaving it that way.
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