I have been scraping and painting the under side of the truck lately a little bit at a time. I found something on the truck I never noticed before on my truck or any other. It is kind of hidden up inside the rear crossmember of the bed behind the drivers taillamp. It is mounted on a sheetmetal bracket, held to the bed with two 8mm bolts backed up with nuts. The part mounts through the bracket so that is protrudes about equally on either side. It had a wire that has been cut off. I looked for any possible place the wire might have went into the rear wiring harness but found nothing. I can't think of any purpose for this being there, I have never noticed a device like this before on any other vehicle I have had (all FORDS). It looks factory, it uses factory style mounting bolts, it looks old enough to have been under there since '91. Since it obviously wasn't operational I removed it completely. The truck is operating 100% so what ever it is doesn't effect it running or cause a trouble code. I thought I knew my truck pretty well until I found this. I admit I am stumped, and it bothers me because I consider myself well educated at trouble shooting and repairing vehicles no matter if the problem is mechanical or electrical in nature including modern ABS and EFI.- It bothers me that there is something I don't know. See if anyone can ID this by description and location. If not I might have to break out the digital camera.

 

What you are talking about sounds like it might be a factory or dealer not sure which one installed license plate holder with a light. Its to be used when you don't have a rear bumper. I have had three Ford F-150's and the last two I had have them. The light even still lit up on them. That's how I noticed it. One night I noticed clear light on the ground under the truck on one side so I looked and thats what I found. The one I have now doesn't have it though. If the thing you took off has two holes in it and is about as wide as a license plate then thats probably what it is. Hope this helps. I might be wrong though.

 

I agree with TexasGuy001. My 86 has one as it evidently didn't come with a bumper from the factory, and it's just like you described. There should be a bracket on it to mount a liscense plate. Does your bumper have liscense plate lights with wiring that looks stock?

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[font color="green"]1995 F-150 Supercab XLT 4x4 302 M5OD 8' bed [/font]31x10.50's
[font color="green"]1986 F-150 4x4 300 I6 NP435 [/font]Warn hubs, DeeZee bed caps, '96 XLT bench seat, new paint job

 

Well, after your suggestions I looked the part over better, and you are right. The lense part was painted black by the last owner while undercoating the truck apparently. Once I scraped the paint off I was ready to kick myself, it never occured to me that it could be a light when I first took it off the truck. It seems strange that a lariat truck came without a rear bumper but I am going to bet being a 250 they put it on all of them coming down the line because so many 250's got turned into fleet/service vehicles. The wire that would have been attached must be hooked to the lights that are in the bumper now. The bumper is not factory but a westin replacement. I have my original window sticker and at the bottom it states that the truck was not hauled into the dealer from the factory on a car hauler but driven from the factory to the dealer in a convoy. Thanks for the help guys, now I'm happy I know what it is, and mad at myself for not recognizing a light.