Re: 1990 Bayliner Capri restore in progress w/pictures now!!
Glad to see a fellow '90 Capri owner digging in! These are fantastically pretty boats.
No shock on the transom. Bayliner attached the stringers to the transom without glass, so one affects the other. Any back story and before pictures on the boat? Keep digging away, it gets easier once the digging ends.
Unfortunately, I didn't take any interior pictures other than the shot of the rotten spot prior to ripping into her.
Back story: I've never owned a motor boat before, but I grew up taking fishing trips with my dad to Lake Vermillion in Minnesota. I've also been going to Wisconsin with my wife for 14 years now and watching people out on the lake and wishing I was too. We had a really rough beginning to our year when my wife delivered a baby in May with a rare congenital heart defect called HLHS (Hypo-plastic Left Heart Syndrome) that affects 3 in 10,000 babies. Basically the baby (Blake) was born with 1/2 of a normal heart. Blake had open heart surgery at 9 days old and my wife and I spent 5 weeks in the hospital with him fighting to keep him alive. On June 8th, Blake had fought with all his mite, but passed away from an overwelming infection. Since then we have made sure to cherish our other 2 children even more than before. We continue to grieve, but are trying to slowly heal...
One day in August (out of the blue) I told my wife that I'm buying a boat. I looked for 1 day and found a classified ad on EBAY that was close to me and I liked the way the boat looked and it was cheap. I did absolutely everything possible wrong. I didn't look hard, I didn't research, I didn't inspect it, PO told me it had a soft spot in the front of the deck (I didn't care). It was a total impulse buy, but it met my criteria at the time which was: 1. Cheap 2. Had an Outboard 3. Fit in the garage 4. Looked cool
I took the boat to Fox Lake in Illinois for a shakedown run and had a hard time getting the motor started, but once it started it ran fine for several hours. A few weeks later my wife and I took it to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. We had a great time, but on our last day we were running wide open and when i backed off to come into the marina the motor died. A fellow boater who we had been watching college football with at a restaurant/bar across the bay ended up towing us into the Marina. We towed the boat home and after a bunch of investigation and help from the iboats forum I pulled the head and found a broken piston. I decided that since i plan on keeping the boat that I'd rather repower than rebuild the 20 year old Force motor (Think i over-revved the Force). I found a good deal on a 2007 Mercury that was leftover stock at bass proshops and put it on the boat along with a tach.
I had planned to replace the deck over the winter, but it has now spawned into a deck/stringer/transom replacement and a total restore with new seats etc...
So thats my story. Basically the boat has become my coping mechanism to help me deal with the death of my son, and I look forward to the end product which will allow me to enjoy time with my wife and kids (Beth 7 and Kenny 5 pictured above). I still don't have a name for the boat yet. I think because its so important to me and I haven't found a name meaningful enough yet.
, Bulkheads are rotten, stringers have mush in them where attached to the bulkheads. Jury is still out on the transom. I was hoping to not have to remove the cap, but its starting to look like I need to pull the motor, and pop off the cap. I think I can get away with not pulling the cap if the transom isn't rotten. I'm starting to find it hard to believe there isn't any rot in the transom though. 
