What is this Thing Hanging Off My Radiator Frame?

They are similar to the catalytic converter bars you see on 4Runners and now 3rd gens. It wouldn't be useful to prevent damage if it was stronger than the frame, so it's probably designed to collapse at some force higher than zero but less than enough to cause damage itself. At some point a collision is bad enough that bumpers aren't going to dissipate enough energy and at that point the truck's doomed anyway. But run over a piece of tire tread on the highway and have those little bars bend is better than your tie rod ends.

Take them off, leave them on. Either way your truck is gonna work fine. I left them on because they haven't ever really been in the way and I dunno exactly why they're there. Plus they provide the third captured nut for the BPF recovery point and ARB bumper subframe that I have.

 

Do you know me? Cuz this is the kind of random crap that follows me around, LOL!

 

It's the radiator nubbin.

 

Every now and then I attach my GoPro to that spot by zipties for some sweet mall crawl action footage.

 

It protects the tie rods

 

I don’t live in California, im also a paramedic and first responder. But I still don’t use red forward facing lights, just some cool mall crawler gear for my 2wd truck. Calm down.

 

The first day I had my truck I stopped by Hollister Hills SVRA. While checking out the amount of travel in the suspension the rock I was crawling up rolled and I can down hard on that piece. If it hadn't been there I might have damaged the steering.

BTW, it only scratched the bar.

 

Those are 'pretty' things, baubles for those who like them and huge profits for Toyota.

 

Curb stop flexing on a stop marked 'reserved'?

You're a bad man............

 

Well, low and behold, looked at this part on my taco tonight and it looks like it’s been taking some damage.

Maybe it acts as a “tell-tale” so you hear and feel the scraping before you smack your tie-rods against a rock. At the same time, since it’s not part of the frame, any damage it takes does not affect your trucks structure or throw the alignment outta whack.

Might be Toyota genius at work.