back in oct,3-4 this bull was thoroughly shot bacause some guys insisted on using 3/8 bolts,and probably still believe they are right.

we tried to make sure no one else in the future made that mistake because 3/8 will go in easily,,too easily,loose but not right.

i never had open dirty holes and when adding extensions to lower the steps on my 07 i turned the 10mm bolts with fingers,easily, no drag, so if the're clean it should be no struggle,,or maybe u still have wrong pitch or???

i reused the bolts/brackets on 2010 and they fit the same.in the frame,but the steps seem slanted down in the rear and i wonder if gm made the later steps different??

 

Tom, I assure you that I had the right 10 mm pitch. The Rock rails were GM OEM components and the hardware came with the rails.
New England winters can be tough on vehicles plus I had been offroad a few times before I installed the rocker protection rails, so there was built up mud in the holes.

I have had to chase threads many other times when installing things to frames such as trailer hitches. It doesn't hurt to do so. I also coat the screws with neverseize when putting them in.

 

These holes have been open for a while. I cleaned the crap out of them. First bolt went ok, second bolt snapped off after the third twist and it wasn't even with much elbow grease. Ugh. I knew this was going to be no fun.

 

That's exactly why I ran a tap in each hole first. Buy a tap at the same time you are getting the ez-out that you now need.

 

yeah, thats what i said,if there clean ,,,

"i never had open dirty holes and when adding extensions to lower the steps on my 07 i turned the 10mm bolts with fingers,easily, no drag, so if the're clean it should be no struggle,,or maybe u still have wrong pitch or???"

you should never turn when tight but im surprised u could break one so ez

 

I was able to back the nub out with a pair of vice grips. I think I broke the bolt because I had a deep socket on the bolthead and did not have it completely squared on it. I was only using the deep one rather than the normal depth as it was the top front bolt on the drivers side and all the parking brake linkage is right in front of it. Tomorrow after work I think ill try again. And I was spraying wd40 in the holes and on the bolts, torqueing in a bit then back it out cleaning everything and then do it again a bit deeper etc.

 

Yep, I think you are correct regarding the deep socket. I would use a wrench, you're not going anywhere fast with this process anyways. If you have a ratcheting wrench, zero offset would be perfect.

Good luck. Be patient and you'll get it.