I looked at mine today and i really can't figure out what it does. It almost looks like some kind of fail safe that if the cables snap on the tailgate that this would catch it? Whether the tailgate is up or down this bracket doesn't touch anything. I just installed my light bar and removed it. Still need to wire it up.

 

Yeah man. I came to the same conclusion. Even if it is a back up to the cable it's only catching the rolled lip of the tailgate skin and there is no way that's holding if my fat ash is on it.

Gonna mess with it tonight. Anyone got the skinny on which wires to pick up to hard wire?

 

It prevents the tailgate from lifting off when using the grab bar/step, since the torsion is biased to that side...hence the catch bracket on that side.

 

I think I could see that, but when i removed the tailgate to install the damper behind the taillight....the tailgate has to be open halfway in order for things to line up to remove the tailgate. Can it also be removed when its laying flat open?

I still feel like its some kind of fail safe - if the tailgate were to try to lift off with the step down....it would def do some damage to the bottom of the tailgate.

 

To me it seems unlikely that Ford would spend the money to install it if it wasn't needed!

The question is what is it needed for. My guess was to keep the gate in the center of the opening. But did we find out only the tailgate step ones have it?

 

I picked up my truck on Sept.30th and took off that piece and installed my blinker strip on Oct. 1st.
No issues!

 

Here is mine. I'm going to install the raptor grille lights up front, so I went with the same look in the rear.

 

Where did you get those rear lights at?

 

Search LED ID bar. I got mine from eBay.

 

I like that. And good job blurring every plate in the picture. Thats the kind of OCD I can appreciate.