Someone sold it for cheap due to the fact that it’s 30 years old. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it’s in pretty good condition considering.
In the picture I am in the process of scrubbing away the worst rust bits. Turned out to be mostly surface stuff. Scrubbed what I could, and got a nice thick coat of Hammerite
The brakes should be replaced soon, but it’s not urgent. Same goes for the bed, but that’s not urgent either.
Lights worked fine, but used the old 7 pin connector. I replaced it with a proper 13 pin ISO 11446 connector so I can plug it into my car without an adapter.
TIL 13 pin towing connector.
In the USA, 4 and 7 pin connectors are typical on automobiles, until entering the domain of commercial trucking. I imagine the 4 pin is unused outside of North America because there is no distinction between red turn indicators and red tail lights, which is a travesty that continues to annoy us.
I’ve never seen a four-pin trailer connector here. And those limitations you mentioned would probably prevent any trailer with it from being road legal.
Older cars have 7 pin connector (it’s common to only use 5 of them), and it’s fine for most things. But for the past 20-25ish years, new cars come with 13 pins which has support for some nice things such as charging caravans, etc.
On big trucks like semis the electrical connector to power lights on the trailer is called a 7-way, it had seven pins, next to the two pneumatic connectors, it’s a big fat cylinder
And 7-way roundpin truck/ag is different from the 7-way flatpin that most bumper-pull trailers would use.