Hauling boat 500 miles

So my dad and i are taking the boat up to lake champlain in vermont/new york for our annual smallmouth bass fishing trip. Were going to be using my truck since his f150 is on it's last leg.

I'm looking for some advice/tips for driving my truck this distance while towing our loaded up boat. The boat is a 16' aluminum bass boat with a 50hp johnson, the boat fully loaded should be right around 1500lbs (not much at all i know).

I have a 1st gen 4x4, 3.4L,5sp,75,xxx miles and i just put new ome dakar leafs with bilstein 5100 in the rear so it should ride great.

I'm figuring that with the boat being so light there shouldn't be any issues, but is there anything i need to be worried about maintainence wise before heading up there. Should i be worried about the extra strain on the manual transmission and give it ample breaks to cool down along the way?

Any help/advice is greatly appreciated, btw were leaving in the middle of may... counting down the days.

 

Any preventative maintainence i should take care of since i do take it offroad at least once a month?

 

Cool thanks for the help, just wanted to make sure i wasn't overlooking something major.

 

you should be fine! I had 1989 toy p/u 4x4 4banger and a 16' Lund with a 40 force and towed it great!!! so it will be a piece of cake.

 

Just keep in mind that your stopping distances will be longer if the trailer doesn't have brakes. You also want to anticpate turns much sooner and get in the proper lane early.

Make sure the trailer itself is in good shape and pay particular attention to making sure the bearings have fresh lube. Bearing buddies work well for this. Pull over after a few miles and check the temperature of the bearings. If one or both is hot enough to burn add more lube.

Another thing to do is to use a lock or a clip on the coupler. Sometimes it will come open over a bump if it does not have a safety fastener.

 

I have experience towing the boat around jersey so i know about the braking and turns. I also just repacked the bearings last weekend, so they're good to go. We have a lock on the coupler that secures the boat to the hitch.

I'll probably stay right around 60-65 on the highway, no need to push it. I'm mostly worried about the strain this trip will put on the truck. I've come up with a to do maintenance list as well as a list of stuff to bring if anything were to go wrong. So hopefully i'll be set.