So, I got my AMP Research Powersteps last night when I got home from the good old UPS Man. (I love that guy!) I could barely wait until the sun came out to put them on this morning. They said it would take an expert 3-5 hours to install. Well, they’ve never seen me work! I finally get started at 0900. (Wifey made me mow the dang lawn first.) Everything comes in a long single package with three boxes inside as well as the steps. Here’s what’s inside the boxes:
So, the first thing I notice and all of the screws are hexagonal. Cool, let’s get out the old Allen Wrench set. Metric or standard? Well I got both, so let’s see. The answer to that question is yes. Apparently the designer had all of these Allen Wrenches lying around the shop and decided that he wanted to use them all. I ended up having to use 2 standard Allen Wrenches and 1 metric. The next thing I notice is that the instruction book is 4 pages and really all of the instructions are on 2. This should be cake!
Step 1: After watching several videos online, I know that you need to connect the motors first. So, that’s what I do.
Step 2: Install the mounts to the truck. The mount with the motor goes on the back on both sides. Why? No idea. I guess because they wanted you to have to run 10 extra feet of wire along the frame. It would have made more since for the motor to be installed on the front of the truck, but I’m sure it’s designed to be install on the back.
Hummm. Doesn’t say where on the truck to install the mounts… There are at least 6 places to mount the steps under the truck, so I picked the second one from the front and second one from the back. Is this right? Who knows. If they fall off, then I’ll know I was wrong. Also, they are only held in place by the single bolt sticking out the truck and a single hex screw. I guess that’s all they need.
On to the driver side. Front one installs no problem. Back one? Not so much. The motor is in the way. So, remove the motor, install the bracket, then install the motor back, which was much easier when it wasn’t on the truck. The driver’s side back one took me about 30 minutes to install.
So all mounts installed. Got about an hour into it. This is a good time to bring up the fact that this job is much easier with a creeper. I got a creeper. It worked great on the passenger side, the I noticed it no longer wanted to roll. The wheels were locked up. So, I had to finish this install without one. I can say that if I had to do it again, I’d go buy a new one in a heartbeat. My back is killing me from rolling around on the concrete.
Step 3: Install the boards. Here’s where it gets tricky. You have to line up these stupid little silver brackets that slide along the board. Now, I understand that the brackets need to slide, but they slide quickly and do not stay in one place. Also, you’ll need an Allen Socket to install these. Do not even try to install them with just an Allen Wrench. You cannot apply enough force with just a tiny piece of metal. You’ve really got to crank down on these bolts, otherwise, you’ll end up with only half the board raising and the other half will be left hanging down. Remember that the there is only has 1 motor on each side, so the actual board is what travels up and raises the mount without a motor. It says to measure 11” from the front wheel. I just looked and saw were I wanted it lined up, then tightened the bolts down.
Step 4: Let’s run the wires. Wait a minute? The light kit has a second set of wires and another set of instructions. These are only 2 pages. OK. So, plug in the lighting wire to the step wiring harness. The plug that plgus into the Powerstep Controller has a center hole in it designed for the power wire of the light kit. You have to insert that wire in the plug, then use their cool little wire connector kits to connect the ground wire. Boy am I glad I saw this first before running the step wiring harness. Now, time to run the wiring. The wire bundles travel up through the driverside wheel well up to the master brake cylinder. Then you attached the Powerstep Control unit to the wire bundle below the brake cylinder. Or at least, that’s where I attached it.
Step 5: Run the passenger side wires. I ran them along the top just under the hood of the engine compartment. (Make sure you run the wire’s for the passenger side lights as well. If not, then you have to cut off the zip strips and run new ones as I did. Don’t worry. You’ll remember when you see this long wire bundle sticking out of the driver’s wheel well. You’ll be like, “Hummm. What’s that for?”) You can run them anywhere, but of course they can’t touch anything hot. Then down through the passenger wheel well and along the frame to the step motor.
Step 6: Attach the ground wire to the battery. Ok, not too much here. You’ll need a 10mm socket to disconnect the battery cable. Careful not to drop the nut from the battery cable as it will travel down the engine compartment and stop just inside the skid plate. However, if this does happen, Nissan was thinking about you and made the two bolts that hold the back of the skid plate the same size. 10mm. Simply unbolt the two bolts in the back, give the old skid plate a good shake, and the nut for the battery cable falls on the ground. Now, a word of caution. If you had to perform the skid plate step, do not bolt it back on. Just leave the two bolts on the ground under the skid plate for now. Place the negative wire on the negative cable and give her a few turns so that damn nut won’t fall out on you again. Leave it disconnected because you’ll be messing with the hot wire next.
Step 7: Remove the fuse for the Powersteps and attach the power wire to the hot side of the battery. I have no idea who or even how, they torqued the bolt on top of the hot battery cable. I dang near broke the cable trying to get this stupid bolt off. I gave up and decided to sue the clamp bolt just as I did with the ground. It was much simpler in a way. So, unscrew the nut holding the clamp on the Hot wire. Careful not to drop it as it travels down the engine compartment and lands directly in the skid plate. However, if this happens, it’s easy to fix. If you left the skid plate screws off from step 5, you’re in luck. Just jiggle the plate and out comes the nut. Now, if you didn’t leave the screws off, as I didn’t, you’ll get to remove them again to retrieve your nut.
Step 8: Reconnect the Battery cables. Simple enough, but once again, use caution not to drop the damn nuts again! They are simple enough to retrieve, unless of course, you bolted the damn skid plate back up again.
I’m about 2 hours into the install by now.
Step 9: Connect the wire’s to the motors. No big deal, but this is where I wonder what the designer was thinking. You have plastic covers that are to keep the mud and grime from the motor, but they don’t have screws. They use this little plastic push thing that can really only be used once. I’d recommend picking up a couple of screws and nuts for this cover.
Step 10: Connect the wires to the inside of the cab. Under the cab, you’ll see these tiny little white plastic things under the seats. If you push on them, they’ll move out the way and you can run the wires under the seat to the wire try in the kick panel. I’d recommend a little silicon after the wires are run to keep the water and dirt out of the inside of your truck. Attached the passenger wires to the red with blue strip and silver dash wire. Make sure you connect it to the correct wire. There is a twisted pair running along there as well with a red and blue stripe wire. That is not the wire you want to use. Trust me, your steps will not work if you do.
Here are pictures of the correct wires.
Passenger Side:
Driver’s Side:
Step 11: Try it out. Put the fuse back in and see if it works. I promise, when you open your door, you’ll say, “Cool!” Then you’ll go get your wife and say, “Come here honey. You gotta see this!” If your wife’s like mine, she’ll say, “Yup. That’s pretty cool”, then go back in the house.
Step 12: Connect the lights. Once again, it doesn’t tell you were to put the lights. They have double sided tape, so you can place them anywhere. If you’re doing this during the daylight, you can’t really tell were to put them either. I guessed and just placed the lights in the middle of the step for each door. I’ll find out tonight if they are in the correct locations. They come with two wire connectors and 2 of those cool wire taps per side. Really not to difficult to figure out and install.
Step 13: Tidy up. So, I’m about 4 hours into this little project. It took me a little while to zipstrip everything, but finally completed at 1:45pm. Almost the 5 hour maximum that they told me.
They say that installation is only for the experienced. I’d have to disagree. I don’t think you need to be an experience mechanic to install these, but you do need to have a good working knowledge of tools and a good Allen Wrench set. You’ll also need your patience. Especially with the battery connections.
Click on the link to see it in action:
Powerstep - YouTube
So, the first thing I notice and all of the screws are hexagonal. Cool, let’s get out the old Allen Wrench set. Metric or standard? Well I got both, so let’s see. The answer to that question is yes. Apparently the designer had all of these Allen Wrenches lying around the shop and decided that he wanted to use them all. I ended up having to use 2 standard Allen Wrenches and 1 metric. The next thing I notice is that the instruction book is 4 pages and really all of the instructions are on 2. This should be cake!
Step 1: After watching several videos online, I know that you need to connect the motors first. So, that’s what I do.
Step 2: Install the mounts to the truck. The mount with the motor goes on the back on both sides. Why? No idea. I guess because they wanted you to have to run 10 extra feet of wire along the frame. It would have made more since for the motor to be installed on the front of the truck, but I’m sure it’s designed to be install on the back.
Hummm. Doesn’t say where on the truck to install the mounts… There are at least 6 places to mount the steps under the truck, so I picked the second one from the front and second one from the back. Is this right? Who knows. If they fall off, then I’ll know I was wrong. Also, they are only held in place by the single bolt sticking out the truck and a single hex screw. I guess that’s all they need.
On to the driver side. Front one installs no problem. Back one? Not so much. The motor is in the way. So, remove the motor, install the bracket, then install the motor back, which was much easier when it wasn’t on the truck. The driver’s side back one took me about 30 minutes to install.
So all mounts installed. Got about an hour into it. This is a good time to bring up the fact that this job is much easier with a creeper. I got a creeper. It worked great on the passenger side, the I noticed it no longer wanted to roll. The wheels were locked up. So, I had to finish this install without one. I can say that if I had to do it again, I’d go buy a new one in a heartbeat. My back is killing me from rolling around on the concrete.
Step 3: Install the boards. Here’s where it gets tricky. You have to line up these stupid little silver brackets that slide along the board. Now, I understand that the brackets need to slide, but they slide quickly and do not stay in one place. Also, you’ll need an Allen Socket to install these. Do not even try to install them with just an Allen Wrench. You cannot apply enough force with just a tiny piece of metal. You’ve really got to crank down on these bolts, otherwise, you’ll end up with only half the board raising and the other half will be left hanging down. Remember that the there is only has 1 motor on each side, so the actual board is what travels up and raises the mount without a motor. It says to measure 11” from the front wheel. I just looked and saw were I wanted it lined up, then tightened the bolts down.
Step 4: Let’s run the wires. Wait a minute? The light kit has a second set of wires and another set of instructions. These are only 2 pages. OK. So, plug in the lighting wire to the step wiring harness. The plug that plgus into the Powerstep Controller has a center hole in it designed for the power wire of the light kit. You have to insert that wire in the plug, then use their cool little wire connector kits to connect the ground wire. Boy am I glad I saw this first before running the step wiring harness. Now, time to run the wiring. The wire bundles travel up through the driverside wheel well up to the master brake cylinder. Then you attached the Powerstep Control unit to the wire bundle below the brake cylinder. Or at least, that’s where I attached it.
Step 5: Run the passenger side wires. I ran them along the top just under the hood of the engine compartment. (Make sure you run the wire’s for the passenger side lights as well. If not, then you have to cut off the zip strips and run new ones as I did. Don’t worry. You’ll remember when you see this long wire bundle sticking out of the driver’s wheel well. You’ll be like, “Hummm. What’s that for?”) You can run them anywhere, but of course they can’t touch anything hot. Then down through the passenger wheel well and along the frame to the step motor.
Step 6: Attach the ground wire to the battery. Ok, not too much here. You’ll need a 10mm socket to disconnect the battery cable. Careful not to drop the nut from the battery cable as it will travel down the engine compartment and stop just inside the skid plate. However, if this does happen, Nissan was thinking about you and made the two bolts that hold the back of the skid plate the same size. 10mm. Simply unbolt the two bolts in the back, give the old skid plate a good shake, and the nut for the battery cable falls on the ground. Now, a word of caution. If you had to perform the skid plate step, do not bolt it back on. Just leave the two bolts on the ground under the skid plate for now. Place the negative wire on the negative cable and give her a few turns so that damn nut won’t fall out on you again. Leave it disconnected because you’ll be messing with the hot wire next.
Step 7: Remove the fuse for the Powersteps and attach the power wire to the hot side of the battery. I have no idea who or even how, they torqued the bolt on top of the hot battery cable. I dang near broke the cable trying to get this stupid bolt off. I gave up and decided to sue the clamp bolt just as I did with the ground. It was much simpler in a way. So, unscrew the nut holding the clamp on the Hot wire. Careful not to drop it as it travels down the engine compartment and lands directly in the skid plate. However, if this happens, it’s easy to fix. If you left the skid plate screws off from step 5, you’re in luck. Just jiggle the plate and out comes the nut. Now, if you didn’t leave the screws off, as I didn’t, you’ll get to remove them again to retrieve your nut.
Step 8: Reconnect the Battery cables. Simple enough, but once again, use caution not to drop the damn nuts again! They are simple enough to retrieve, unless of course, you bolted the damn skid plate back up again.
I’m about 2 hours into the install by now.
Step 9: Connect the wire’s to the motors. No big deal, but this is where I wonder what the designer was thinking. You have plastic covers that are to keep the mud and grime from the motor, but they don’t have screws. They use this little plastic push thing that can really only be used once. I’d recommend picking up a couple of screws and nuts for this cover.
Step 10: Connect the wires to the inside of the cab. Under the cab, you’ll see these tiny little white plastic things under the seats. If you push on them, they’ll move out the way and you can run the wires under the seat to the wire try in the kick panel. I’d recommend a little silicon after the wires are run to keep the water and dirt out of the inside of your truck. Attached the passenger wires to the red with blue strip and silver dash wire. Make sure you connect it to the correct wire. There is a twisted pair running along there as well with a red and blue stripe wire. That is not the wire you want to use. Trust me, your steps will not work if you do.
Here are pictures of the correct wires.
Passenger Side:
Driver’s Side:
Step 11: Try it out. Put the fuse back in and see if it works. I promise, when you open your door, you’ll say, “Cool!” Then you’ll go get your wife and say, “Come here honey. You gotta see this!” If your wife’s like mine, she’ll say, “Yup. That’s pretty cool”, then go back in the house.
Step 12: Connect the lights. Once again, it doesn’t tell you were to put the lights. They have double sided tape, so you can place them anywhere. If you’re doing this during the daylight, you can’t really tell were to put them either. I guessed and just placed the lights in the middle of the step for each door. I’ll find out tonight if they are in the correct locations. They come with two wire connectors and 2 of those cool wire taps per side. Really not to difficult to figure out and install.
Step 13: Tidy up. So, I’m about 4 hours into this little project. It took me a little while to zipstrip everything, but finally completed at 1:45pm. Almost the 5 hour maximum that they told me.
They say that installation is only for the experienced. I’d have to disagree. I don’t think you need to be an experience mechanic to install these, but you do need to have a good working knowledge of tools and a good Allen Wrench set. You’ll also need your patience. Especially with the battery connections.
Click on the link to see it in action:
Powerstep - YouTube