This is a TC1000 right? It's a really nice size, and glad to hear it can go most places you want it to go. I have always been unsure of how capable FE's would be on rough roads with that front overhang, and how stable the short wheelbase FE's would be at highway speeds.
Is it 8 or 9 window? Have you ever measured the overall length or usable interior space?
Yes, mine is a TC1000. It is a "low-rider" compared to the TC2000 and other heavy-frame buses (i.e. not van-cutouts). but it still has OK clearance.
The front overhang is less than the rear overhang, but lower. Overall, the overhang is not an issue. On one
very steep driveway exiting an old gas station, the tow-hooks on the front barely scraped the road; but I was driving very slow. I've seen plenty of cars that would have had a problem with that driveway.
The short wheelbase makes me bounce in my driver's seat. But pots and pans on the wire shelves in the middle of the bus stay there and don't rattle annoyingly. The air-ride seat makes the bounce not an issue for me. And the air ride seat didn't even work for the first year I drove it (the line was pinched, and all I had to do was lift the seat by hand to unpinch the line) yet the bounce was still tolerable. I also have compressed-gas shocks in the front (the rod always wants to extend with force), which may make it want to bounce more. I have "basic" shocks in the rear, in which the rod stays where you put it, but I never get to ride back there to see how bouncy it is. Those were the only options for shocks that I could find. The original BlueBird brand shocks were completely shot, and it bounced even more when I first got it.
On rougher roads, the only thing I would want is a quick-disconnect for the front-axle stabilizer bar. First a quick primer: the stabilizer bar on any vehicle keeps it from "rolling" when you go around a turn. As you turn, "G" forces of inertia try to keep the bus going strait. The wheels at the bottom try to turn the bus. The top of the bus still wants to go strait, so the bus "leans". This causes the suspension springs on the inside of the turn to extend (that side of the bus goes up) and the springs on the outside of the turn to compress (that side of the vehicle goes down). The stabilizer bar links the two sides together, so if one wants to go up, it pulls the other side up, and when one wants to go down, it pulls the other side down. So going around a turn on the highway, the forces are equalized, and the vehicle does not roll.
Offroad (or more specifically, on gravel or dirt roads) you may encounter endless uneven surfaces, including large deep potholes. Again, as one front wheel enters a hole, it needs to drop, and the stabilizer bar tries to pull the other one down. This causes a lot of stress on the spring bushings, as well as on the bus' frame. By disconnecting the stabilizer bar in these situations, one tire can go up and one can go down without stress on the bus. You can really hear the bus body "creek and complain" even just pulling over a driveway hump when turning into a store or something, and especially off-road. In the attached pic, the stabilizer bar is in the foreground, and I would pull the out the lower hinge-bolt and replace it with a hitch-pin, assuming I could find one the right size. It would need to fit snug, maybe even need a bushing, or the road would cause a "hammer" effect and it would wear out the hole and the pin. That's why it is a backburner project in contemplation.
In one case I saw here on skoolie.net a year or two ago, someone else with the same model bus hit "the mother of all potholes" in TN (I think it was) with his passenger-side front tire, and it flexed the front corner of the body so much, that his windshield came out of its mounting flange in the lower passenger side corner and cracked. I truly believe that the force to do that came from the stabilizer bar.
But you don't want to disconnect that stabilizer bar if you are going over maybe 40MPH or so.
Other than that, stability is just fine at 80MPH (only got there once, going downhill on an empty highway); I cruise at 70MPH no prob.
My bus is 26' BTB. There is about 20'-21' of usable space inside behind the doghouse (engine cover). The inside height is 75.75" in the center from the factory rubber-mat flooring to the factory steel-panel ceiling. The TC1000 HandyBus has a "flatter" roof, so it is not as much lower near the windows as a TC2000 or other buses with a rounder roof. If I remember, it is about 11' high total, with the AC condenser units on top.
There are 9 "passenger" windows (open vertically) on the driver's side, behind the driver's side window (opens horizontally).
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