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This morning, I removed the driver side front wheel to check the condition of the brake pads and rotor... I've been getting a little shimmy when stopping... and I noticed something (not brake related) that doesn't seem right to me...
Just behind the front wheel, there is a section of square tube welded to the frame, angled slightly toward the back. There is another piece of square tube bolted into the welded one that doesn't seem to serve a purpose. Nothing is attached to it... nothing is supported by it, it's just... there...
The really odd thing is, it appears that the end of this piece has been cut off with a hacksaw. It is not what I would expect a factory original piece to look like. There is an identical piece on the passenger side of the truck...
Is this supposed to be like this? Or did the previous owner do some 'high-quality-customizing' on this truck?
I was just surprised at how the end was finished. I'm a machinist at work and fabricator at home, so the finish on the ends of those pieces look very amateur-ish to me. Yours are finished a lot better than mine.
As others said, it’s a crash bar pit there by Ford to deflect impact force. There are 4, one each in front of and behind each front wheel.
Yours looks to have had the end taken off with something like a Sawzall. It’s commonly done to keep oversize tires from rubbing, especially with non factory wheels.
My step-son had a minor lift plus larger tired put on his 2020 long-bed super crew, and the shop chopped off the crash bars. We both looked at it, and it was our opinion that with the minor lift and only slightly larger tires that this was not necessary. He took it back to them and they welded them back on.
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