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My 2012 F250 Super Duty Diesel has a bracket sticking down from the tailgate that fits in a bracket on the body such that it can't move sideways when the gate is up or down, but it can move when it's at the 45 degree position for tailgate removal.
I've seen this on a few and it's not on many of these trucks. I've stumped a retired Ford engineer and the service department at my local Ford dealership (they can't even find a part number for it.)
The retired Ford engineer worked on tailgates up to the 2009 model year then got shifted to ignition switches... but he thinks it's completely unnecessary.
Here are pictures with the gate up and down:
That white tab sticking down fits in the black bracket on the truck body. Looking down with the tailgate open
by "bed load bars" do you mean torsion bars? I have a leaf spring rear suspension.. so I'm confused here.
The retired Ford engineer said it didn't add any capability that wasn't already in the hinges and latches and the wedge shaped rubber stops.
If the gate was open and I hit a bump just right and the gate bounced up to the 45 degree position with some side force the bracket would not be engaged to stop the gate from popping off. (I have the gate hinge masterlock on it so that wouldn't happen. They're big on stealing tailgates around here.)
Thanks to everyone here_ i found out everything except "can i remove it?" that i"m going to have to find out from the ford engineer forum as soon as i get access
I was looking at one of those RECON scanning light bars and they say "Everyone just takes that bracket off to mount it." But it's a pretty beefy bracket, so I'm erring on the side of caution. Ford wouldn't have spent money on it just to confound me.
I finally got an explanation for the existence of this bracket.
Ford runs a series of durability tests that are related to the truck being tested. When they ran the Fx4 Super Duty Diesel they apparently beat the truck to death to see what would fail. The gate hinges were not able to take the side-to-side forces from the tailgate in this extreme test. The rear box rail was stronger, so that's where the retention bracket went to protect the hinges.
As for the durability test route... a retired Ford engineer described it as, "THE FORD "DURABILITY TESTING" IS ONE VERY SEVERE ROUTE. I HAVE BEEN ON IT. MY OPINION IS THAT NO RATIONAL, SENSIBLE PERSON WOULD SUBJECT THEIR OWN VEHICLE TO THIS ROUTE."
That reminds me of that Mythbusters episode where they made square wheels for their superduty. It got up to about 35 or 40 before it sheared all 8 studs off one of the rear wheels.
When the tailgate is down does it touch the bracket? I have a 08 up tailgate with step on an 02 and it has that weird extra metal on the bottom and I was wondering what it was all about.
yes. the tabs on the bottom of the tailgate fit in slots in the bracket on the rear of the bed when it's in the up and down positions. NOT in the 45 degree position... where you need to be able to slide the tailgate sideways to remove it.
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