Old vans - do they need power steering?

[busby]

You lot are whimps worrying about no PAS on an old van. That was all we had at one time and a fully laden 5 tonne lorry was shall we say hard work. The older drivers fitted a ball on the steering which really helped

Five tonne,,child's play,,On an eight legged you had fifteen ton on the back and two steering Axel's to steer..Stand up job when shunting..Faster you drove the lighter the steering. BUSBY

 

[bigwood]

When I was doing my class two test in the army I had a newish AEC with power steering and a synchro box for training.
When it came to test day my boss allocated me my own truck and told me to take my test in it. I think Montgomery would have been proud of it in his army.
It was an AEC with no power steering, crash gearbox and an Atlas Crane on the back of the cab.
It was a hot summers day and to do the reverse bit of the test I had to stand up to heave the steering over. My legs and arms were like jelly after that. Fortunately I had done the road drive first. The tester said he couldn’t fail me out of sympathy.