Z71 Step tubes

My driver side flexes, while my passenger is solid. Definitely not supposed to!

I'm not Fat i'm Fluffy

Donyukon said:

No pun intended but how much do you weigh? if you are a heavier set guy they will flex a little , when I step on my rails they hardly move , but when my friend who weighs close to 270 steps on them they will flex

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I'm not what you would call thin but at 6'3" im a lil "Fluffy" at 210 but who knows how much the previous owner weighed and my gf weighs less than 130est (you never get a true weight HA) and they flex with her. All the bolts are tight and I've had a friend step on them and it looks like the flex is coming from the rocker but it's hard to tell with all the plastic on it.

Unfortunatly given the time of year and living in PA with no garage it makes it difficult to tear apart so ill have to wait for warmer weather. Since we are all on the subject has anyone ever sprayed theirs with bed liner??? If so what brand did you use and how well did it stick???

yea the rocker usually will cause flex mine does a lil with the steps i put on but i rigged som wood in there and now it doesnt flex. tree branch cut into a small piecebis what i use lol

Snapped Bolts

So finally had a warm/dry enough day to get under the hoe and check her out... I took a couple pictures to show everyone what I found... If yours are flexing I would take a look and see if you have any bolts missing. There are about ten on each side that were missing/sheared off. They are aluminum (SP?) so not exactly sure what I want to try and replace them with, but when you take the gray piece of plastic off they you will be able to see really quickly what I found and if you have the same issue

Mine is not a Z71, but a 2000 yukon xl, it flexes bad on the drivers side, thanks for the pic, I bet thats exactly the issue with mine!

Stein2088 said:

So finally had a warm/dry enough day to get under the hoe and check her out... I took a couple pictures to show everyone what I found... If yours are flexing I would take a look and see if you have any bolts missing. There are about ten on each side that were missing/sheared off. They are aluminum (SP?) so not exactly sure what I want to try and replace them with, but when you take the gray piece of plastic off they you will be able to see really quickly what I found and if you have the same issue

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Thanks for the pics! I know what I'm doing this weekend....

lefty said:

Mine is not a Z71, but a 2000 yukon xl, it flexes bad on the drivers side, thanks for the pic, I bet thats exactly the issue with mine!

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Well my mechanic said that all my bolts were intact. Not sure why it flexes so much, I guess I'll just have to deal with it..

lefty said:

Well my mechanic said that all my bolts were intact. Not sure why it flexes so much, I guess I'll just have to deal with it..

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Not sure if your mech checked or not but the bolts that were missing on mine you had to take the Gray plastic piece off... All the bolts on the inner side of the vehicle are there and tight... Also anyone that has this issue what are you using to replace the junk bolts GM used??? And has anyone found a product to turn that ugly gray plastic back to black or is painting the best route

So I had a chance to take mine off today.....

I was planning on slapping some stainless steel bolts in there along with lock washers and nuts, but you can't get to the other side of it to be able to put the nuts on. It seems as though GM used an aluminum push pin type thing to secure these (no wonder they're loose). This is obviously a crappy design, but without being able to get to the back I think I may have to get a few of these from the dealer.

Any thoughts guys??

This is one of 5 brackets that bolt up to the truck to support the step tubes. As you can see ALL of them have they're bolts sheared off!