That's for the carburetor anti-ice system. It's not a rod, but a hollow sleeve. Steel lines would've been pushed into this sleeve from top and from bottom. The one from the top would've been insulated with woven silica/asbestos sleeving and would've connected to a threaded fitting on the passenger side of the carburetor base. The one from the bottom would've been uninsulated, and connected to a rubber hose which would've connected to a nipple on the underside of the air cleaner baseplate. This was optional equipment on Canadian-made \6 cars from 1960 through 1969, and was present on most of those cars. It was standard equipment on all 1969 US-market \6 cars. It seems quite logical to assume that cars destined for the Nordic countries would have the system, even if they were built in the US!
You can't remove the sleeve without causing very large exhaust leaks. It doesn't really get in the way.