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I was going to extend mine but tried the tape first. Glad I did, so easy and it's surprising how grippy the boards are now. Just your toe on them and it grips like crazy. Doesn't alter the stock appearance if you cut the strips to fit the plastic.
Go get some rustoleum rattle can bedliner and give them a few coats. You'll have good reaction after that. Extending them away from the body is good too, it'll give you more space to put your foot on. Best way is to ditch that step and get something better, AMP power steps being the best (read: most expensive).
My Nfabs are really bad. Get any moisture on them and you better be careful. I added a small strip of skateboard tape on them and while it helped, it didnt fix it. I love the look but I dont like the function.
Had mine Line-X'd with the bed. Stopped me from hitting the pavement and looking more clumsy than usual. Those chrome edges were a lot more slippery than I ever imagined.
I bought 3M anti skid or stair traction tape at home depot. Bought a new pair of scissors (they will be garbage after cutting this stuff for long). Then I made a template, cut them into angled strips to match the plastic ridges in the running board and applied them on a sunny day after washing the plastic real good. Been holding strong for over a year with only minor wear around the edges beginning to show on the drivers side that takes most of the abuse. Best investment (besides the DZ tailgate assist) I've done. Also, if you don't already have them you should install mud flaps to keep slush from getting kicked up onto the boards and then freezing which is terrible for traction.
Both my wife and I found the stock running boards to be extremely slick (as owl sh*t, according to someone on here...lol....a term that I've added to my vocabulary). Plus, as many have mentioned, they have a slight downward slope, which just adds to the problem. I was originally going to do the 1/4" thick plate extensions, and I thought 1" would be about right (others did 2" or even 2-1/2", which I thought was too much), and then I considered doing the rattle can bedliner (as JJM mentioned) on them, but the 3M grip tape sounded like a good idea. Cut 52 strips for the boards, and 20 shorter strips for the Kickplate (or whatever it's called) right above it. WOW....the difference is amazing! Since it's stuck to plastic, I'd bet it will wear pretty well. For $21 at Home Depot, with a 10% military discount (I hope all of you ex- or current military members take advantage of this at H.D. and Lowe's), it is fantastic. Took just over an hour....as I put a strip down, wife pulled the backing off of the next one (hey, she has finger nails). Feet stay where you plant them now. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention....I put a long strip of masking tape along the front edge of the running board (I actually have a huge roll of 3" wide, extra sticky masking tape....being 3" wide, it gives you a nice straight edge. Then I could butt each 3M strip against that tape and lay it down. When I pulled the long strip of masking tape off, the ends of all of the strips were all perfectly lined up.
Here you go....from the passenger side (less sun). I didn't bother cutting angles on the running board strips, just measured (3M 4" x 15' grip tape) and cut the first 4" strip, marking my ruler with a piece of duct tape....then just cut the rest. For the 10 upper ones, which are shorter, i cut angles on them (using the 1st one as the angle template, so they'd all match). Unless you really get close and look for imperfections, it looks like it came right from the factory. Oh, remember that the driver and passenger sides are mirror images....if you cut angles, they will be on the opposite side for the other side of your truck.
02-12-2016, 08:07 PM
