Posted: 03 July 2009 at 9:50am | IP Logged

OK.  I made the trip from Lake Lanier, GA to Ohio River at Cincinnati, OH.  Payload was a Sundancer 260 6.2 liter, generator, half tank of fuel, water/holding tanks drained, and usually boating stuff left inside the boat.  Trailer was a Heritage Custom weighing in at 1800 lbs.  I also had someone follow me in a minivan to offload payload should it have been required.  Truck was minimally loaded with just myself in the vehicle.  I had no prior experience towing anything and would definitely recommend practicing with an empty trailer next time, as everyone did advise me to do.

Conclusion, though not ideal the F150 (5.4 liter, 3.73 gear ratio, 20" tires, crew cab) handled the trip better than I was expecting, though I did average only 9.5 gallons per mile.  Oh well, like I said, not towing it very often and probably never this far again (about 500 miles this trip).  Breaking was fine, but also drove cautiously and allowed plenty of distance to stop.  Had a couple of hard stops at lower speeds and things worked as expected.

The hitch was a bit of a pain to get setup properly, but it was because the brackets that attach to the trailer to hold the sway bars really want to be where there is structure on my trailer.  I tried to go aft a couple inches, but the bars popped off during sharp turns.  I moved them forward a couple inches ahead of normal and it worked fine after adjust the height of the brackets.  I WOULD NOT ATTEMPT TOWING THIS FAR WITHOUT ONE OF THESE HITCHES ON AN F150.  It helped tremendously with stability.  Basically made the truck and trailer one unit.  Oh, make sure you have the dealer install the hitch ball for you before leave the store.  You have to buy it seperate and the structure of the hitch requires the use of a 1 7/8 thin walled, short socket that is apparently only available from the manufacturer for $80.  That was the only really hokey thing about it.  Fortunately, I figured this part out 2 days before when I went to install the trucj portion of the hitch at home.

I also installed an Edge Power Programmer on the truck.  My interest was not in the tow programming that comes with it  but with the ability to monitor my fluid temps (and other engine parameters) in more detail.  My transmission never went above 206 degrees and the same for the engine cooling.  Normal range on the trip for transmission was around 180 and coolant was around 195.  Used the analog gauge for oil which never moved passed the middle of the gauge.  Transmission and coolant temps peaked when I took a long, windy, 60 mile stretch of country road to get to the interstate.  Definitely the most stressful driving of the trip.  Getting over the mountains north of Knoxville on I-75 was really not an issue.  Was able to do 50 mph comfortably up and and the same going down with little to know breaking with O/D off.  I also turned O/D off pretty much whenever I encountered a hill.  If not, the O/D would start hunting for the right gear, which I was warned about.  On straight aways, I was doing 60 mph comfortably.  Made it to 65 a few times, but felt more comfortable in the 50-60 mph range.

So that is it for the F150 report.  Now, for the bad part.  I paid the marina to service my trailer and they ended up replacing the brake lines due to sludge build up.  Everything else was in the green, according to them.  However, my emergency surge break breakaway line was broken, which required a last minute fix.  I guess they consider this unimportant, but I consider it essential!

40 miles into the trip I had a tire blow.  MAKE SURE YOU HAVE BOAT US TRAILER ROAD SIDE ASSIST.  It saved the day for me!  Though I had brought a ramp to drive up on, it did not work as advertised and kept sliding when I tried to drive up onto it.  Also had the wrong size lug wrench with me.  Dumo newbie mistake on that one.

I did not like what I was seeing with the remaining tires and decided to divert to a tire shop.  All tires were in VERY bad shape.  It is suprising that more did not blow and I was lucky to make it to the shop.  In the future, I will not tow with tires more than 4-5 years old on a trailer.  These were 6 years old.  I am shocked the marina did not note this as they would have made a tidy profit on selling me tires.  Furthermore, the most likely cause of the blow out was that the wheel well bunk boards were rotten and bowed inward rubbing on the side wall of the tires.

So, the conclusion is that the F150 with a weight distributing hitch is ok, especially if you are only towing periodically, but I am not sure I would go any larger than my payload.

Lesson learned on the trailer servicing from Port Royale Marina in Cumming, GA.  I will also be far more proactive in the future with trailer maintenance on my own.  In the end, it was the trailer that made the Adventure an Ordeal, at least for a few hours until the tires were replaced!